<p>the previous record was $40.4 million (last year), and the target for this year was $42.5 million. the actual haul for this year, however, will be at least $46.5 million, with at least 58% of undergraduate alumni contributing, including some 70% from the five youngest classes. by these numbers, princeton's future appears to be in very good hands.</p>
<p>preliminary results, with press release to follow:</p>
<p>the thursday mail must have been kind: the campaign total is now up to more than $49 million (up more than 20% over last year), with 58.5% of undergrads contributing (up from last year's 58.2%).</p>
<p>this shows how much undergrads love the school =)</p>
<p>Now if only their investment office could get the kinds of returns Harvard and Yale do. People will start to get reluctant about contributing when their money isn't going to be invested properly.</p>
<p>annual giving contributions are spent, not invested - that is what makes them particularly valuable to the university. in any event, contributions that ARE invested are certainly done so "properly" - to the tune of a 19.5% return in 2005-06 (better than HS, better than all but YM in fact).</p>
<p>Annual giving almost always directly offsets endowment spending, making it equivalent. Anyways, Princo's high return last year is good to hear, since Princeton has in general been trailing by a significant margin:</p>
<p>Increase in endowment, 2001-Present (COHE)
Princeton up 54.8%, to 13B (1.9M per student)
Harvard up 62.2%, to 29B (1.46M per student)
Yale up 68.2%, to 18B (1.8M per student)</p>
<p>If you are a philanthropist, you think of endowments as stocks (you also look at what the money is used for, of course:) Where would you want to put your money?</p>
<p>"People will start to get reluctant about contributing when their money isn't going to be invested properly."</p>
<p>People contribute their money because they love the school, period.</p>
<p>:In the fiscal year ending June 30, 2006, the Yale Alumni Fund raised almost $28 million from over 53,000 donors." - direct from the Yale website</p>
<p>Seems like Princeton beats Yale hands down when it comes to Annual Giving from alumni.</p>
<p>^^^Not necessarily. Giving varies greatly from year to year and there are many different "funds" to give to. A better analysis is of TOTAL alumni giving, to all funds, which Chronicle of Higher Education does (see below). Of course Princeton is always ONE of the top schools in this regard, since it has many loyal alumni, but it doesn't beat other top schools by any "hands down" margin.</p>
<p>Top 10 institutions nationwide in alumni support (gifts) per student, from COHE:</p>
<p>Washington and Lee University $19,042<br>
Yale University $17,118<br>
Princeton University $17,058<br>
California Institute of Technology $16,641<br>
Williams College $15,352<br>
Wabash College $13,950<br>
Bennington College $13,832<br>
Swarthmore College $13,579<br>
Harvard University $13,479<br>
Grinnell College $12,085 </p>
<p>Total support (gifts) per student (alumni + other), 2004-2005 (COHE)</p>
<p>Yale University $25,152
Princeton University $24,777</p>
<p>posterX, those figures are obsolete. Can you show the 2006-2007 figures instead?</p>
<p>"Annual giving almost always directly offsets endowment spending, making it equivalent. Anyways, Princo's high return last year is good to hear, since Princeton has in general been trailing by a significant margin:</p>
<p>Increase in endowment, 2001-Present (COHE)
Princeton up 54.8%, to 13B (1.9M per student)
Harvard up 62.2%, to 29B (1.46M per student)
Yale up 68.2%, to 18B (1.8M per student)</p>
<p>If you are a philanthropist, you think of endowments as stocks (you also look at what the money is used for, of course Where would you want to put your money?"</p>
<p>by the way posterX, increase in endowment is exponential. The greater the amount of money you have to invest at the beginning, the higher the return
you'd get.</p>
<p>Since both Yale and Harvard have significantly higher endowments compared
to Princeton, it is only logical that H and Y would both have higher rates/percentages of return on their investments.</p>
<p>Not yet available. Also, increase in endowment is not exponential. It is based on how good your investors are. There are many schools with endowments relatively close to HYP's that have significantly lower returns than other schools whose endowments are a tiny fraction of that size. Similarly, Harvard's return is not as high as many other institutions even though its endowment is the largest.</p>
<p>Yeah, I disagree with posterX on a lot of things, but on this he's right, albert87:</p>
<p>While your endowment will grow much larger depending on the amount of money you had to start (think of it like a geometric sequence), generally, in any given year, the rate of return on the endowment is only dependent on the skill of the investors behind the endowment. This may not always be true of course, if size is a limiting factor making more profitable (but larger) transactions difficult - but in the cases we're comparing here, that's certainly not the case.</p>
<p>In reality, it may actually be harder (rather than easier) to grow a large endowment at the same rate as a slightly smaller one.</p>
<p>so princeton investors are not as adept as harvard/yale investors. </p>
<p>Actually, I don't care... as long as one can get a great education at princeton.</p>
<p>Two requests to anyone:</p>
<p>(1) Can we have more recent numbers from COHE? It seems odd that we'd see a citation to the '04-'05 giving numbers. Even if the '06-'07 numbers aren't available yet, why on earth wouldn't you use '05-'06 numbers instead?</p>
<p>(2) Better yet, can someone give a verifiable citation, something online from a reputable source, maybe? The first good rule in citing sources - arguably the entire point of the exercise - is that others can look up the source and confirm it says what you claim. </p>
<p>None of this is meant to discredit posterX...merely a note that what separates "sources" from "misinformation" is the fact that sources are relevant, reputable, and verifiable.</p>
<p>silly puddy, seems like you are putting the knowledge you have learnt in writing seminar to good use ;P</p>
<p>the press release, which strangely does not mention that this year's total is up some $8.5 million over last year (noting only a "record" amount):</p>