A booming economy is said to be the reason for the swift rise in donations to colleges and universities, the New York Times reports.

This trend is exemplified by Harvard University, which raised $2.3 billion in seven years. There is still three months remaining in the Harvard goal -- launched in 1992 to bring in $2.1 billion.

Although no American higher education institution has ever brought in that much money, Yale and Columbia universities have come close, with $1.7 billion each over seven years in the 1990s, the newspaper reports.

Will Melton, vice president for external affairs at Middelbury College in Vermont, told the Times donors are more open with their financial success than ever before. He adds that those wealthy donors want to share that success with the institutions that are important to them.

"This is the golden age of philanthropy, and Harvard rode the market climb perfectly," Melton told the newspaper.

Gifts to Harvard increased 124 percent from 1992 to 1998. According to the Council for Aid to Education, during that same period contributions at Princeton University went up 152 percent, and 141 percent at Columbia.

It is the size of the donations -- not the volume -- that are growing, the Times reports.

At Harvard, just 85 gifts of at least $5 million were enough to raise almost half of the campaign's goal. The largest gift was $70.5 million and came from a former member of the college's governing body and his wife.

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