(Image source from: The Telegraph)
Indian-Americans have donated over $1.2 billion to 37 American universities and colleges since 2000 to August 2018, according to a new study led by Indiaspora, that intents to transform the triumph of Indian-Americans into meaningful impact worldwide.
The study by "Indiaspora Monitor of University Giving 2018," said that around 47 percent of the donations are from repeat donors who had also given $1 million or more to either the same or a different university or college.
A whole of 37 different colleges was the recipient of the 68 major donations and these higher educational institutions are both geographically and economically varied. Private universities obtain more than twice the donation as public colleges and receive $5 for every $2 donated to public schools.
The University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) received the utmost number of donations, with Harvard University and Boston University coming second, thoroughly followed by the University of Chicago and University of Pennsylvania. According to the report, three of the 37 colleges receiving donations were community colleges.
Indian-origin people provided money for general student scholarships or campus facilities and buildings.
The donation worth for engineering colleges or universities was the highest at 24.8 percent, followed closely by medicine and business at 20.6 percent. General donations were at 7.3 percent while South Asia Studies received 5.5 percent of all donations. The technology received 3.4 percent of all donations while physics and environmental studies received 1.1 percent each.
According to Council for Aid to Education, donations to American universities raised 6 percent to a record $43.6 billion in 2017, and more than $19 billion of these charitable funds were given by individuals.
Indian-Americans in the United States are the most educated ethnic group, and on an average earn $1,00,000 yearly as opposed $60,000 that most Americans earn.
The study said, "As a community, Indian Americans embody the ideal of hard work and have even been named the most entrepreneurial ethnic group in America."
Indian-American patrons are refining and uplifting the impacts of these fields not just for Indians, but for students from every single culture. The India Studies donations created 10 positions, programs, or centers to promote Indian culture.
"As India becomes a leading nation of the twenty-first century, it is imperative that a pre-eminent global institution like Yale has a deep and wide base of India studies. This commitment reinforces Yale’s position as a truly Global University. We expect many more connections between Yale and India in the years ahead," Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani, who created one of these programs at Yale, was quoted as saying in the report.
One of the largest donations ever made was by an Indian-American Chandrika Tandon, a successful businesswoman and Grammy-nominated artiste. She donated $100 million to New York University’s engineering school. The engineering school's "entrepreneurial spirit" made her donate, highlighting one of the values significant to women of color determined for professional achievement in the country.
"The imagination and inventiveness of the students and faculty as they worked together on real-world problems; the cutting-edge work being done both within the school and collaboratively across schools in such diverse areas like the arts, medicine, education, incubators; the entrepreneurial spirit that pervades the place - all this inspired us so," she was quoted as saying the study.
The study looked at donations that were limited to publicly stated donations or over $1 million to the U.S. colleges and universities, both private and public.
By Sowmya Sangam
