Donations to higher education institutions rose 6.1% in 2019 compared to 2018, boosted by a $1.8 billion gift from presidential hopeful Michael Bloomberg and his foundations to his alma mater, Johns Hopkins University, said a new survey. However, the rate of growth in donations slowed.
According to the Council for Advancement and Support of Education’s “Voluntary Support of Education” (VSE) report, giving to higher education in 2019 rose for the tenth consecutive year, to $49.6 billion, an all-time high. While this should be good news for higher education, given state spending cuts, a parsing of VSE numbers may give observers pause.
That’s because without Bloomberg’s massive donation — which was made in November 2018, giving to higher education institutions would have risen just 3.4%, barely keeping pace with inflation, the VSE annual survey found. Likewise, alumni and non-alumni giving slowed.
The decline in alumni and non-alumni giving, likely due to a tax change, is part of t
What’s also striking in the report, and what’s a good sign, is that gifts for capital purposes, from endowments, increased twice as much as gifts for current operations.
“Endowments tend to get a bad rap, but, without those, you can’t have a university,” said Kaplan in an interview with Diverse. “They fund intergenerational equity. So, they will fund scholarships 10 years from now. The wealth of today pays for the operations of tomorrow.”
That’s because that money first goes toward student financial aid, then for academic divisions and then toward faculty and staff compensation.
