<p>@UCBChemEGrad: A very salient factor that has not been mentioned is size/enrollment. Obviously, any financial metric – in this case, annual charitable donations – must be largely evaluated in relation to the number of students (and faculty, researchers, etc.) it serves.</p>
<p>Duke’s total student population (undergraduate, postgraduate and professional schools) approximates 14,600, while Berkeley’s approximates 36,200 (both based on Fall 2013 data). Further, in FY-14 charitable gifts to Duke were about $442M, while Berkeley’s approximated $341M (employing the figure you cite for UCB). You can do the math, however, it is clear that Duke received about $30K per student, while Berkeley’s donations approximated $9.4K per student – or about a 3.2:1 ratio favoring Duke.</p>
<p>Obviously, these are only rough analytical measures and, in some cases, details such as economies of scale may apply. But, with such a disproportionate advantage, I confidently reiterate the overriding point in my pervious post: future stature is quite dependent on finances/donations (that fund constant improvement in faculty, facilities, research, financial aid, and so forth) and Duke receives appreciably more contributions to enhance a far smaller academic/research enterprise than does Berkeley. </p>