The Friday File: US colleges raised $40.31 billion last year, up 7.6% from 2014. Stanford raised the most; $1.63 billion, followed by Harvard at $1.05 billion, USC at $650 million, UCSF at $610 million and Cornell at $590 million. The top 20 schools (0.66% of all 4-year schools) raised $11.56 billion, or 28.7% of all contributions. To put Stanford’s fund raising into perspective, the bottom 490 schools raised $1.44 billion.