The Wall Street Journal has compiled a list of the 10 countries (or special administrative regions) that donated the most money to US universities between early 2007 to late 2013…and Hong Kong came in at number one! Our city of seven million people makes up 17 percent of the entire world’s donations to American colleges.
And that’s not even counting the donations that the Chan brothers, both Hong Kong property tycoons, made this month: USD350 million (HKD2.7 billion) to Harvard University’s School of Public Health — the largest gift in the school’s history — and USD20 million (HKD155 million) to the University of South California.
Princeton University was the largest beneficiary of Hong Kong’s apparent generosity towards elitist institutions with deep pockets that may or may not be harder for Asians to get into than people of other ethnicities (we’re not against affirmative action — it’s just a little ironic).
Over that five-year period the institution received USD67.6 million (HKD524 million) from Hong Kong donors. That must translate to a lot of Hong Kong princelings graduating with Princeton degrees!
Next comes Stanford, which received USD39.3 million (HKD305 million) from Hong Kong donors, then UC Berkeley (funnily enough, a publicly-funded school), which got USD28.8 million (HKD223 million).
Li Ka Shing, an alumnus, accounts for much of their donations. Harvard received the third most money, with USD19.6 million (HKD152 million) in donations — not counting that last massive gift, of course.
We wonder how much Hong Kong universities get from the US?
Photo: Princeton University (by Minjie C via Flickr)
