The Sources and Uses of Annual Giving at Private Research Universities

Private research universities differ in the shares of their annual giving coming from different sources (alumni, other individuals, foundations, corporations) and the shares of their annual giving applied to different uses (current operations, buildings and equipment, enhancing their endowments). After providing background data on the aggregate variation in these shares over time and their interuniversity variation at a point in time, our econometric analyses use data from a panel of research universities that span a 30-year period to provide explanations for these differences. These differences are seen to depend upon institutional characteristics, macroeconomic variables and tax parameters. One key finding is that richer institutions, as measured by endowment per student, devote a larger share of their annual giving to further building their endowments. This contributes to the increasing dispersion of wealth across private research universities.