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China's wealthiest businessmen are becoming increasingly generous in their university sponsorships. In 2012, China's top 100 philanthropists contributed a total of 4.9 billion yuan (about $787 million), or 5 times more than just the previous year.

Huang Nubo , head of Beijing Zhongkun Investment Group, announced that he is giving Peking University $8 billion over the next 10 years. Being himself a graduate of this university, already in 2011 he donated $145 million to his alma mater , and another $3.5 million to two other institutions of higher education.

Yang Siu , a Nanjing developer and third-largest donor, gave $65 million to his home university, Nanjing University. A quarter of that amount will support historical research, and the rest will be used to create and develop engineering departments. “We used to get a little charity support
from various entrepreneurs and alumni who asked us to simply spend this money on scholarships for students from low-income families, and managing such amounts was not difficult,” says Liu Xiaoli, Secretary-General of the Nanjing University Education Development Foundation. “However, we now needed to create a special fund to ensure long-term planning and effective spending of new large charitable contributions,” he adds.

Charity is becoming a new trend in China, which especially developed in the country after the devastating earthquake of 2008. Newly minted multimillionaires from various sectors of China's dynamic economy - real estate, energy, construction, finance and high-tech - are leading this trend. More than 80% of all charitable donations in China go to the education sector.

A.K. (based on materials from People's Daily on-line)