The institutions that raised the most in private donations in the 2017 fiscal year tended to have been founded before 1900. The average year of founding for the top 20 private institutions on the list was 1823 and for the top 20 public institutions was 1863. Only the University of Miami, and the Universities of California at Los Angeles and San Diego were founded after 1900. Institutions that were the most successful at fund raising also tended to have had a higher share of tenured professors on their full-time instructional staff, and to have had higher average nine-month salaries for full professors in 2016-17 than did similar institutions. Public institutions on the list were more likely than similar public institutions to be in large cities, but private institutions in the top 20 were less likely than similar private colleges to be there.
Private nonprofit institutions
| 1. | Harvard U. | $1,283,739,766 | 1636 | midsize city | $221,382 | 52.1% |
| 2. | Stanford U. | $1,129,329,597 | 1885 | large suburb | $234,549 | 33.9% |
| 3. | Cornell U. | $743,502,739 | 1865 | small city | $170,874 | 59.6% |
| 4. | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $672,939,157 | 1861 | midsize city | $213,750 | 56.9% |
| 5. | U. of Southern California | $668,332,017 | 1880 | large city | $173,331 | 49.3% |
| 6. | Johns Hopkins U. | $636,910,731 | 1876 | large city | $158,283 | 29.0% |
| 7. | U. of Pennsylvania | $626,485,118 | 1740 | large city | $209,223 | 58.4% |
| 8. | Columbia U. | $603,077,208 | 1754 | large city | $215,091 | 28.7% |
| 9. | Yale U. | $595,886,406 | 1701 | midsize city | $216,189 | 36.5% |
| 10. | Duke U. | $581,050,570 | 1838 | large city | $188,199 | 34.1% |
| 11. | New York U. | $567,120,862 | 1831 | large city | $190,917 | 27.6% |
| 12. | U. of Chicago | $483,470,131 | 1890 | large city | $224,811 | 37.7% |
| 13. | U. of Notre Dame | $451,433,280 | 1842 | large suburb | $175,518 | 59.6% |
| 14. | Northwestern U. | $344,298,666 | 1851 | small city | $200,268 | 45.4% |
| 15. | Princeton U. | $303,393,945 | 1746 | large suburb | $206,496 | 62.2% |
| 16. | Washington U. in St. Louis | $281,491,088 | 1853 | large suburb | $180,207 | 60.1% |
| 17. | Brown U. | $241,986,818 | 1764 | midsize city | $175,824 | 63.3% |
| 18. | California Institute of Technology | $235,881,767 | 1891 | midsize city | $198,918 | 72.8% |
| 19. | U. of Miami | $221,705,733 | 1925 | large suburb | $161,604 | 56.0% |
| 20. | Emory U. | $218,501,059 | 1836 | large suburb | $166,959 | 33.7% |
•••
Public institutions
| 1. | U. of Washington, multiple campuses | $553,890,900 | 1861 | large city | $137,925 | 53.7% |
| 2. | U. of California at Los Angeles | $550,933,540 | 1919 | large city | $192,312 | 44.2% |
| 3. | U. of Michigan, multiple campuses | $456,132,043 | 1817 | midsize city | $167,364 | 33.3% |
| 4. | U. of California at San Francisco | $422,172,285 | 1864 | large city | $128,088 | 12.4% |
| 5. | U. of California at Berkeley | $404,587,975 | 1868 | midsize city | $181,998 | 69.1% |
| 6. | Ohio State U., multiple campuses | $401,850,260 | 1870 | large city | $138,897 | 49.1% |
| 7. | Indiana U., multiple campuses | $398,259,543 | 1820 | small city | $126,162 | 49.1% |
| 8. | U. of Minnesota, multiple campuses | $339,394,147 | 1851 | large city | $137,223 | 48.9% |
| 9. | U. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | $325,932,129 | 1789 | small city | $152,091 | 51.9% |
| 10. | U. of Colorado, multiple campuses | $312,786,332 | 1876 | midsize city | $136,476 | 56.4% |
| 11. | U. of Texas at Austin | $304,293,616 | 1883 | large city | $113,724 | 55.0% |
| 12. | U. of Oklahoma at Norman | $302,983,206 | 1890 | midsize suburb | $118,548 | 53.9% |
| 13. | Texas A&M U. at College Station | $290,458,453 | 1871 | midsize city | $140,436 | 51.0% |
| 14. | U. of Virginia | $268,406,839 | 1819 | small suburb | $165,321 | 47.5% |
| 15. | U. of Florida | $267,350,482 | 1853 | midsize city | $136,089 | 62.1% |
| 16. | U. of Wisconsin at Madison | $258,645,216 | 1848 | midsize city | $123,228 | 44.5% |
| 17. | U. of California at San Diego | $240,075,664 | 1960 | large city | $162,414 | 47.2% |
| 18. | U. of Arizona | $219,928,978 | 1885 | large city | $129,087 | 57.4% |
| 19. | U. of Nebraska, multiple campuses | $210,687,857 | 1869 | large city | $125,019 | 58.2% |
| 20. | Michigan State U. | $199,927,880 | 1855 | small city | $145,899 | 50.0% |
Note: Data on private donations are based on survey responses from 933 institutions to the Council for Aid to Education’s Voluntary Support of Education survey. The survey tracked gifts that were received, not just promised, during the 2017 fiscal year, which ended on June 30, 2017, for most institutions. In cases in which multiple campuses are covered in the total fund-raising amount, the year of founding, locale, salary, and share of tenured instructional staff are for the main campus only. Average salaries cover full professors only, are for 2016-17, and are adjusted to a standard nine-month work year. The percentage of tenured professors was calculated by dividing the number of tenured professors into the number of full-time instructional staff at each institution for the fall of 2016. All institutions on the list except the University of California at San Francisco, which is a special-focus institution, are classified as doctoral institutions with the highest research activity in the 2015 Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. Comparisons in the summary to “similar” colleges refer to institutions with that classification. The characteristics in the table included several mentioned as influential in the 2013 report “Million Dollar Ready: Assessing the Institutional Factors That Lead to Transformational Gifts,” prepared by Indiana University’s Lilly Family School of Philanthropy and the fund-raising consulting company Johnson, Grossnickle and Associates. Questions or comments on the Chronicle List should be sent to the list’s editor.
Sources: Council for Aid to Education (private-donation amounts and rankings); U.S. Department of Education (locale, salaries, percent tenured); university websites (founding year); Chronicle analysis