Giving to colleges and universities was flat in the 2003 fiscal year, according to the results of an annual survey scheduled for release today. Until recently, such a finding would have been cause for despair. Nowadays, however, fund raisers are relieved just to know that no additional ground was lost.

For the second consecutive year, estimated private contributions to higher education totaled $23.9-billion, down from $24.2-billion in the year ending in June 2001, according to the Council for Aid to Education, which conducts the "Voluntary Support of Education" survey.

"I think this essentially means that the drop in giving that we saw last year was not part of a pattern," said Ann E. Kaplan, who conducts the annual survey. "The economy has gotten better, but not to the point where people feel they are out of the woods in any sector. I think it will be the next survey or the one after before we see a real increase in giving."

The council, which has tracked giving to colleges for more than 50 years, based its total for 2003 on fund-raising results reported by 954 institutions. Most institutions' fiscal years end on June 30.

In the 2002 fiscal year, the total value of gifts to higher education dipped for the first time in 14 years. A decrease in alumni giving was the main reason for the 1.2-percent overall decline. Ms. Kaplan said a 13.6-percent drop in gifts from alumni in 2002 was puzzling because "people tend to be quite loyal to their alma mater."

In 2003, however, alumni giving rebounded to $6.6-billion, an 11.9-percent increase. Alumni gifts and grants from noncorporate foundations provided the largest shares of support for higher education in 2003, with each contributing 28 percent of the total. In 2002, foundation giving surpassed alumni giving for the first time in 25 years.

The study attributed last year's increase in alumni giving to larger gifts, not larger numbers of graduates making donations to their alma maters. Some alumni, perhaps worried about their finances in 2002, may have held back on giving that year, only to roll the money into one large donation for 2003, Ms. Kaplan said.

Meanwhile, giving to institutions by other people fell 15.7 percent, the steepest drop in at least 30 years, to $4.6-billion. Ms. Kaplan said the reasons for that decline are unclear.

Giving to higher education from the survey's other sources -- corporations, religious organizations, and other groups -- either declined or remained flat as percentages of total higher-education giving.

Some types of institutions rely on voluntary support more than others do. Private liberal-arts colleges, for example, raise 22.3 percent of their budgets from voluntary support.

Among all colleges, voluntary support over each of the past five years has accounted for about 8 percent of annual spending.

"The data suggest that voluntary support is not likely to offset declines in other funding sources," Ms. Kaplan said.

The survey revealed that the stock market's floundering during much of the 2003 fiscal year put a crimp in the amount and number of large gifts to colleges -- gifts often made from stock holdings. In 2003 the number of gifts of securities dropped by 17.3 percent, and their value fell by 21.2 percent. The average gift of stock reported on the survey was $34,219. In 2000, when the economy was still humming, the average stock gift was $42,066.

Fund raisers can take heart in the market's gains in the current fiscal year. Since July 1, the S&P 500 has increased by 16.1 percent.

The list of top 20 fund-raising institutions included many of the usual suspects from previous years. Harvard University raised $555.6-million in 2003, regaining the top spot from the University of Southern California -- which was in the home stretch of a $2.85-billion fund-raising campaign, the largest in the history of higher education. Stanford University and the University of Pennsylvania completed the top three.

Nine of the colleges on the list are public institutions. The University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, recipient of a $300-million cash gift from the Walton Family Charitable Support Foundation, was the highest-ranking public university in overall fund raising. It collected $365.3-million in the 2003 fiscal year, placing fourth.

"We're delighted to be in that company," said G. David Gearhart, vice chancellor for university advancement. "The Walton family gift was really what bumped us up to that level."

The gift from the foundation, which is supported by relatives of Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., is the largest private contribution ever to a public university. Two-thirds of the donation will go toward establishing and endowing an honors college. The rest will endow the university's graduate school.

The University of California at Berkeley, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Michigan State University, and Emory University disappeared from the top-20 list last year. They were replaced by the University of Arkansas, the University of Texas at Austin, Indiana University at Bloomington, and Princeton University.