Harvard fund-raising drive reaches record $7 billion

With nearly two years remaining on its fund-raising campaign, Harvard University already has raised more than $7 billion, the college said Thursday.

The campaign was launched three years ago with a goal of raising $6.5 billion. With the latest donations, Harvard’s campaign becomes the largest ever for higher education, topping Stanford University, which announced in 2012 it had raised $6.2 billion.

“I am deeply grateful to everyone who has participated in this outstanding effort so far,” President Drew Faust in a statement in Harvard Magazine. “Our aspirations speak to our larger hopes not only for a better Harvard, but also for a better world.”

Among Harvard’s top financial priorities are building a $1 billion science and engineering complex in Allston and remaking the college’s undergraduate houses.

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