The sources and uses of annual giving at selective private research universities and liberal arts colleges

Selective private research universities and liberal arts colleges 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 variation across institutions at a point in time, our econometric analyses use data from a panels of selective private research universities and liberal arts colleges that span a 31-year period to provide explanations for differences across institutions in the sources and uses of giving. These differences are seen to depend upon a number of institutional characteristics. 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 academic institutions. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.