Analyzing Three Decades of Philanthropic Giving to U.S. Higher Education (1988–2018)

Abstract

This investigation explores trends in U.S. higher education philanthropy across 30 years, exploring giving by donor type, the purposes of the contributions, and institutional-type variation in philanthropy. We used a longitudinal national sample (1988–2018) of approximately 400 public and private institutions from the Voluntary Support of Education (VSE) survey. In the sample of mostly 4-year institutions, giving increased by an inflation-adjusted average of 3.6% annually and 175% overall, from $9.1 billion to $25.1 billion (2018 dollars). All donor types gave more dollars, gifts supported a broad range of purposes, and all institutional types benefited. Four notable trends include: an increase in the proportion of donations from organizations, and especially foundations, rather than individuals; an early shift in funding toward capital/endowment purposes but then back to current operations since 1998; designation of a larger proportion of funds for restricted, rather than unrestricted, purposes; and a higher proportion of dollars contributed to public, as compared to private institutions. Within sector trends reveal that increased giving to public institutions partly accounts for the rising proportions of both organizational donations and donations for current operations purposes. This study fills gaps in the scholarly literature about higher education philanthropy and provides information for institutional leaders to benchmark fundraising trends and prepare for the future.