USC and UCLA rank high for financial donations to campuses

USC ranked third among universities in the nation behind Stanford and Harvard for collecting the most contributions last year, according to a survey being released Wednesday.

UCLA garnered the largest total of gifts of any public institution in the country, although it placed 11th among all universities, state and private, the survey by the Council for Aid to Education found.

Stanford received $931.5 million; Harvard, $792.2 million and USC, $674.5 million. The next schools in the report’s top 10, ranging from $646 million to $423 million, were all private institutions: Columbia, Johns Hopkins, University of Pennsylvania, Cornell, New York University, Yale and Duke.

UCLA was next, with $419.6 million, according to the report.

The survey counts only money and other gifts that were collected during the year, officials of the New York-based CAE said. Donations pledged -- including many with fanfare -- but not yet transferred to the schools were not counted.

The report, called the Voluntary Support of Education, found that philanthropy for colleges and universities has recovered nicely from the dips in the recession in 2008 and 2009. Across the country, campuses collected $33.8 billion, the most in the history of the 56-year-old survey.

Other California schools that reported taking in large donation totals last year included: UC San Francisco, $385.7 million; UC Berkeley, $340.9 million; UC San Diego, $167.4 million; UC Davis, $104.7; Caltech, $103.4 million; UC Irvine, $77.2 million; San Diego State, $72.4 million; UC Santa Barbara, $60.9 million; Chapman University, $42.8 million; Harvey Mudd College, $40.6 million; Santa Clara University, $39.8 million; Claremont McKenna College, $32.6 million.

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