Giving to U.K. Universities Jumps 14% to $1.1-Billion

British universities reaped a record $1.14-billion in donations in 2011-12, but the figures showed a widening philanthropic gulf among the country’s institutions of higher learning, with half the money going to Oxford and Cambridge, the BBC and Times Higher Education report.

The haul represented a 14-percent increase over 2010-11 giving, according to a review of giving to 143 universities in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland by the National Centre for Social Research. Higher-education philanthropy is Britain is up by 33 percent over two years ago

But some two-thirds of the participating universities reported a decline in donation income last year, with giving heavily concentrated on Oxford, Cambridge, and other members of the Russell Group, a consortium of two dozen major U.K. universities. Along with benefiting from their elite status, those institutions have much bigger development staffs and spend far more on fundraising than most British universities, U.K. magazine Spear’s writes.