No, you're not imagining things: Giving to colleges and universities is still going up. With the Great Recession moving ever further into the rearview mirror, the economy continuing to gain steam, and stock portfolios flush from a long bull market, it's good times in campus development offices. What's more, the future looks pretty rosy, too.

That's the takeaway from a new study by theCouncil for Advancement and Support of Education(CASE), and it certainly tracks with the reporting we've been doing over the past year on a seemingly endless string of major gifts to higher ed institutions.

The CASE Fundraising Index (CFI) study, conducted twice every year, surveys senior-level fundraising and development directors at over 1,600 CASE-member institutions across the U.S.—including colleges and universities (public and private, two-year and four-year), and private independent K-12 schools—to estimate the level of charitable giving they received over the 12-month school year and to predict the level for the 12 months ahead. And according to the CFI, the 2014-2015 academic year saw overall charitable giving to educational institutions jump over 5 percent, with many predicting next year's numbers will be even higher.

According to CASE:

Fundraisers at independent schools estimated the greatest growth in giving for the 2015 academic year at 5.9 percent. Fundraisers at public and private higher education institutions estimated 4.8 percent and 4.9 percent, respectively, while community colleges estimated giving at 1.5 percent.

Looking forward, fundraisers at schools, colleges and universities predicted an increase of 6.2 percent in giving in the 2016 academic year. Public higher education institutions and community colleges were the most optimistic, predicting 8.3 and 9.2 percent increases in giving.

If numbers are more your thing, here’s a fun graph CASE released to put the data above into colorful numerical context: