College fundraising hits record $46.7B

U.S. colleges raised $46.7 billion in the 12 months through June 2018, the ninth straight record year, as the lengthy bull market for stocks helped spur contributions.

Harvard University, the country’s richest school, pulled in the most money, with $1.4 billion, according to a study released Monday by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education.

The S&P 500 Index’s 14 percent return in the period may have helped encourage giving from a variety of donors. Three colleges brought in more than $1 billion each. Seven got single gifts of $100 million or more, the highest number of schools receiving contributions of that magnitude. The total, up 7.2 percent from the prior year, came amid uncertainty after changes to the U.S. tax code in December 2017, about halfway through the academic term.

Among top fundraisers, second-place Stanford University attracted $1.1 billion, and Columbia gathered $1 billion. The University of California at Los Angeles raised $787 million, and UC San Francisco took in $730 million.

Some 927 schools responded to the survey, which relied on estimates for institutions that didn’t respond.