Stanford University Nets $6.2 Billion In 5-Year Campaign

SAN FRANCISCO — Stanford University's latest five-year fundraising drive netted $6.2 billion, the largest amount ever raised in a higher education campaign, school officials said Wednesday.

Money from the Stanford Challenge is being used to fund an interdisciplinary approach to teaching and research on areas such as education, environment, human health and international affairs, officials said.

"We've undertaken a new model in higher education, with experts from different fields joining together," school president John Hennessy said in a statement. "This kind of collaboration has enabled Stanford to assume a larger role in addressing global problems."

The money is providing funding for more than 160 endowed faculty positions, 360 graduate student fellowships, the construction or renovation of 38 campus buildings, $27 million in seed grants for innovative research and more than $250 million for need-based undergraduate scholarships.

The $6.2 billion raised by the Stanford Challenge is the most collected by a university in a single fundraising campaign, said spokeswoman Lisa Lapin, citing the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. That total surpasses the $4.3 billion goal set when the campaign was launched in October 2006.

During the campaign that ended Dec. 31, the university received donations from more than 166,000 alumni, parents and community members.

The university received contributions of more than $50 million from Stanford alumni such as Yahoo Inc. co-founder Jerry Yang, Nike Inc. co-founder Phil Knight and Silicon Valley venture capitalist Robert King.

Stanford is the latest university to announce a successful multibillion fundraising campaign. Last year, Yale University said it had raised $3.9 billion, and the University of Pennsylvania said it collected $3.5 billion.

"It's an impressive drive for funds that most public universities can only dream to eventually match," said John Aubrey Douglass, a researcher at the Center for Studies in Higher Education at the University of California, Berkeley. "Donors are attracted to the big-name universities, but I worry some that the rich keep getting richer."

Comments

[waspbust]

01:02 PM on 02/10/2012

how funny that someone from the so-called Ivy's has commented on Stanford's fund raising activities. You are all in the same mold. Just because Stanford is on the westcoast does not mean it is any different in goals or behaviors. You are all part of the American WASP oligarchy that has a stranglehold on the country, including great publics. You dominate the media and buy whatever you want. The money from these campaigns will allow Stanford to RAID the faculties of good universities and make them poorer in academic potential.
Stanford is a very young university. It was not started until the early 1900s. There are hundreds of older universities that have finer traditions, but they have less money. I know people who went to Stanford in the 40s and they are not very smart. Stanford is also blessed with a great climate (well, at least in the winter, the summers are deadly); however, it is the money that has made this school. Anyone could be Stanford if it had the cash that SU has.
DUke tried to do the same thing. It is also a very young school. The difference is Duke is no Stanford. Nor is it the equal of several of the top publics. It also got its money from tobacco, which in itself is sleazy. Durham is a dump in absolute terms and relative to Palo Alto is hell vs. heaven. At least you can breath (somewhat) in the Stanford summers, unlike tobacco row.

[Diana Pangaribuan]

09:53 PM on 02/09/2012

Lock.

[ricchh]

01:55 PM on 02/09/2012

Yale's and Columbia's campaigns are currently larger than Stanfords and do not end for another two years. Stanford raised 2.2 billion before the campaign began and are fraudulently adding this to their 6.2 total.

[Reyeshawk13]

01:19 PM on 02/09/2012

"I worry some that the rich keep getting richer."

The schools mentioned here all raised more in a year than my alma mater's total endowment. Oh well, I didn't choose based on how much the school was worth.

[bracer8]

10:07 AM on 02/09/2012

"I worry some that the rich keep getting richer." -- hey, it's the U.S., that's the way the system works.