<p>I doubt that Pitt gets more state funding than PSU, altho I have no clue as to PSU’s funding. A year ago when our D was a Pitt freshman, we were told at one of those orientation parent things that less than 25% of the Pitt budget comes from the state. The rest is a combination of tuition and fees, federal and private research grant type money, alumni donations, corporate donations, and other types of donations. Pitt was referred to as being “state-related” as opposed to a “state school”. It started out as a purely private university and started receiving state funds in addition to private funds in the 70’s I think.</p>
<p>There are apparently lots of wealthy and/or enthusiastic alumni who fund a lot of these scholarships. The engineering alums pump a lot of cash into the engrg scholarships for example.</p>
<p>The Peterson Center (the Pete) and the Nanotechnology Center are two examples of things funded almost entirely by alumni donations (at least the construction, getting it going $$).</p>