US public universities build huge endowments

This news item (Hat tip: Pradeepkumar) is about the University of Illinois, which is in the middle of a campaign to raise $2.25 billion :

There are currently more than two dozen universities in the midst of campaigns of at least $1 billion, including the University of Chicago, which expects to conclude its $2 billion campaign by June 2008, a year later than originally anticipated. The University of Notre Dame recently announced a $1.5 billion effort.

Only four other public universities -- Michigan, UCLA, Virginia and Washington -- have completed or are in the middle of campaigns of more than $2 billion.

Across the Atlantic, the University of Cambridge has set itself an ambitious goal of raising £1 billion (about $2 billion) through "the Cambridge 800th Anniversary Campaign".

As I have noted earlier, the corpus funds of our universities are subject to a cap of Rs.50 crores (about 12 million dollars); for places like the IITs and IISc, the cap is Rs.100 crores (about 25 million dollars).