Appendix A.5. Council for Aid to Education

The Council for Aid to Education, Inc. (CFAE) is a not-for-profit corporation funded by contributions from businesses. CFAE largely provides consulting and research services to corporations and information on voluntary support services to education institutions. Each year, CFAE conducts a survey of colleges and universities and private elementary and secondary schools to obtain information on the amounts, sources, and purposes of private gifts, grants, and bequests received during the academic year.

In the 2005 study, approximately 3,080 colleges and universities were invited to participate and 1,005 responded, for a response rate of 33 percent. CFAE estimates that about 85 percent of all voluntary support is reported in the survey because of the high participation of institutions receiving large amounts of funding.

Survey forms are reviewed by CFAE for internal consistency before preparing a computerized database. Institutional reports of voluntary support data from the CFAE Survey of Voluntary Support of Education are more comprehensive and detailed than the related data in the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) Finance survey conducted by NCES. The results from the Survey of Voluntary Support of Education are published in the annual Voluntary Support of Education, which may be purchased from CFAE.

Further information on voluntary support of education may be obtained from

Ann Kaplan
Council for Aid to Education, Inc.
215 Lexington Avenue
21st Floor
New York, NY 10016
vse@cae.org
http://www.cae.org/content/publications.htm