According to a Bloomberg report, Ivy League school Columbia University raised over $6.1 billion. The fundraising, said the news agency, was a new record for Ivy League schools. Columbia launched its fundraising campaign in 2006.
In an email sent to the university community, Columbia said the fund raised would be the second biggest amount raised even by any college. Columbia is second to Stanford University, which is located in Palo Alto, california, who managed to raise $6.23 billion, of which the school ended the campaign in 2011. The previous record holder was the University of Pennsylvania, who raised $4.3 billion from a fundraising campaign that ended in December two years ago.
In the email, Columbia President Lee Bollinger said that over $1 billion of the funds has been allocated for student financial aid. Around $1 billion will be used to support 40 various projects across the school campus. One of the projects is a campus expansion which measures 17 acres located in the West Harlem neighborhood of Manhattanville. Moreover, part of the $1 billion allocation will also go towards funding over 260 professorships.
"Even the bare statistics underlying the campaign total are amazing and should give us heart for Columbia's future," Bollinger stated.
Executive vice president for University development and alumni relations Fred Van Sickle told Columbia Spectator in a separate email, "None of us began this effort imagining we would exceed $6 billion."
Columbia Spectator said that an detailed itinerary of fund allocations, which will normally go to financial aid, research, faculty and facilities, will be released publicly on April 3 at an event specifically celebrating the fundraising milestone, the local paper added.
Harvard University in September last year launched a fundraising campaign, of which its goal is to raise $6.5 billion by 2018. This fund goal would be the biggest set by a university in the US, Bloomberg noted.
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