February 3, 2011; Source: San Francisco Chronicle | Stanford University and Harvard University suffered devastating declines in incoming contributions this year with Stanford’s contributions declining 6.4 percent to a mere $599 million and Harvard’s declining .78 percent to $597 million, according to a report from the Council for Aid to Education.

Okay I’m being a little sarcastic. But if it’s any consolation to Stanford, it has beat Harvard in numbers of dollars raised for the sixth year in a row. In other words, it raised the most money of any university with Harvard coming in second. In fact of the twenty universities that raised the most, 13 of them suffered declines from the previous years. Flying just that much to close to the sun?

Meanwhile donations to colleges overall rose by .54 percent. The Indiana University Foundation was an outlier in the contributions game this year as their donations increased by 38 percent due in part to a $60 million grant by Lilly Endowment, Inc.—Ruth McCambridge

Correction: This Newswire originally reported that the Temple University Foundation saw increases in contributions instead of the Indiana University Foundation.