Prosperous alumni helped make 2006 a recorded fund-raising year for colleges and universities, which hauled in $28 billion—a 9. 4 percent jump from 2005. (67) There were increases across the board, but for usual it was the already wealthy who fared best. (68)Stanford's $911 million was the most ever collected by a single university, and rose the possibility of a billion-dollar fund-raising year in the not-too-distant future. (69) 'There were a set of ideas and a set of initiatives that the university is undertaking that people wanted to invest,' said Martin Shell, Stanford's vice president for development. (70) 'This is an unbelievably generous response from unbelievably philanthropic set of alumni, parents, and friends.' (71)Harvard ranked two in fund-raising last year with $595 million. (72) National, donations from alumni rose 18. 3 percent from 2005. according to figures released yesterday by the Council for Aid to Education. (73)Alumni donations account about 30 percent of giving to higher education. (74) Giving from other groups, such as corporations and foundations, increased by much small amounts. (75) Survey director Ann Kaplan said the strong economics played a role, but universities also were asking more aggressively as part of formal fund-raising campaigns. (46)