Stanford last year became the first university to raise more than $1 billion in a single year, according to the Council for Aid to Education’s annual college fund-raising survey.

Partly because of large donations from entrepreneurial alumni who have made their fortunes in Silicon Valley, Stanford has been the top fund-raiser for eight straight years.

Last year, the university, near Palo Alto, said its five-year capital campaign, which ended in December 2011, had taken in a record-setting $6.23 billion, far exceeding its original goal of $4.3 billion, and surpassing by more than $2 billion any other single higher-education campaign.

“Stanford has been doing a remarkable job,” said Ann E. Kaplan, the director of the council’s report. “By any standard, it’s been amazing. They have some very big ideas, and they’re good at capturing people’s imagination, thinking about what they can do and what they could be.”