Banner fundraising year for wealthy colleges, including University of Wisconsin

Stanford University, which recently broke an all-time record by completing a 5-year, $6.2 billion fundraising campaign, led with $709.4 million collected in fiscal 2011, followed by Harvard ($639.2 million) and Yale ($580.3 million). Rounding out the list were private universities such as Columbia and Johns Hopkins, as well as elite public universities such as UCLA and the Universities of Texas, Wisconsin and North Carolina. Most campuses on the list have major medical schools and affiliated research centers, though No. 4 MIT ($534 million) is an exception.