It turns out that the $2.8 billion the school recently raised was just the “pre-launch phase” of a campaign that was officially unveiled Saturday. Harvard is hoping to pick up a total of $6.5 billion from donors in what Reuters says is “believed to be the most ambitious” fund-raising effort ever undertaken by a university. The money is intended to support teaching and research, financial aid programs, and “capital improvements.” (The university was forced to halt a planned campus expansion, including the construction of a $1 billion science complex, after it lost 27.3 percent of its still huge endowment during the financial crisis.) Basically, this is what it will take to knock Princeton from the top spot on U.S. News & World Report’s list.
