In a five-year fund-raising campaign that concluded December 31, Stanford University raised $6.2-billion, the largest sum ever collected in a single campaign by a higher-education institution, the university announced on Wednesday.
The money will go toward a variety of university projects, including 38 new or renovated campus buildings, $250-million in need-based scholarships for undergraduate students, 130 new endowed faculty appointments, and 360 new fellowships for graduate students. More than 166,000 alumni, parents, students, and others made 560,000 donations since the campaign began in 2006, the university said in a news release.
The campaign, called The Stanford Challenge, far surpassed its original goal of $4.3-billion, and exceeded the previous record for a concluded higher-education campaign by more than $2.3-billion, according to Pam Russell, spokeswoman for the Council for Advancement and Support of Education.
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This is yet another example showing how the wealthy have become even wealthier during the “Great Recession” while the 99% have become poorer. And remember, wealthy folks donate $s to universities in part to avoid paying taxes, part of the reason for the large federal and state budget deficits. The beneficiaries of these huge donations to elite colleges are mostly upper middle and wealthy students, not the bottom 80% of the population who rarely even consider applying to elite college. They, instead, attend state colleges whose budgets are being slashed because of budget deficits.