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Colleges That Raised the Most in Private Donations, FY 2017

Almanac 2018

August 19, 2018

Eleven private nonprofit institutions raised more money in the 2017 fiscal year than did the public institution that raised the most. All of the 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. If multiple campuses were considered together, that classification is for the main campus.

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4-year public institutions

Rank	Institution	Amount raised
1.	U. of Washington, multiple campuses	$553,890,900
2.	U. of California at Los Angeles	$550,933,540
3.	U. of Michigan, multiple campuses	$456,132,043
4.	U. of California at San Francisco	$422,172,285
5.	U. of California at Berkeley	$404,587,975
6.	Ohio State U., multiple campuses	$401,850,260
7.	Indiana U., multiple campuses	$398,259,543
8.	U. of Minnesota, multiple campuses	$339,394,147
9.	U. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill	$325,932,129
10.	U. of Colorado, multiple campuses	$312,786,332
11.	U. of Texas at Austin	$304,293,616
12.	U. of Oklahoma at Norman	$302,983,206
13.	Texas A&M U. at College Station	$290,458,453
14.	U. of Virginia	$268,406,839
15.	U. of Florida	$267,350,482
16.	U. of Wisconsin at Madison	$258,645,216
17.	U. of California at San Diego	$240,075,664
18.	U. of Arizona	$219,928,978
19.	U. of Nebraska, multiple campuses	$210,687,857
20.	Michigan State U.	$199,927,880

4-year private nonprofit institutions

Rank	Institution	Amount raised
1.	Harvard U.	$1,283,739,766
2.	Stanford U.	$1,129,329,597
3.	Cornell U.	$743,502,739
4.	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	$672,939,157
5.	U. of Southern California	$668,332,017
6.	Johns Hopkins U.	$636,910,731
7.	U. of Pennsylvania	$626,485,118
8.	Columbia U.	$603,077,208
9.	Yale U.	$595,886,406
10.	Duke U.	$581,050,570
11.	New York U.	$567,120,862
12.	U. of Chicago	$483,470,131
13.	U. of Notre Dame	$451,433,280
14.	Northwestern U.	$344,298,666
15.	Princeton U.	$303,393,945
16.	Washington U. in St. Louis	$281,491,088
17.	Brown U.	$241,986,818
18.	California Institute of Technology	$235,881,767
19.	U. of Miami	$221,705,733
20.	Emory U.	$218,501,059

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. Questions or comments on the Almanac should be sent to the Almanac editor.

Source: Council for Aid to Education data</small></p