Texas A&M Has Raised A Record $740 Million From Donors Thanks In Part To Johnny Manziel

Texas A&M University raised a record-breaking $740 million in donations and pledges over the last fiscal year, potentially the most ever raised by a public university, the Bryan Eagle reports.

For comparison, A&M's fundraising haul is over $300 million more than its previous record year, and close to $600 million more than the university raised in 2012.

A&M System Chancellor John Sharp announced the fundraising amount to in an email to donors Saturday. More than half of the money will go to the Texas A&M foundation - which Ed Davis, president of the Texas A&M Foundation, said "mainly funds scholarships, faculty support, student activities, campus construction projects and college discretionary funds." About another third will go to school's "12th Man Foundation," which is current trying to finance a $450 million upgrade to A&M's football stadium.

Davis told the Eagle that much of the fundraising success derives from A&M's star quarterback Johnny Manziel and the school's recent football victories:

People ask me all the time if you have a winning football team, do you raise more money. In normal times, the statistical data wouldn't support that, but in an era where we are in, effectively, in the news everywhere and you have a young man like our quarterback who has been a media magnet and you have the success you have, I do think that euphoria does spill over into success in fundraising. I'm hoping we can keep it up.

A&M may be helped by Manziel's football prowess for at least a a few more years, as many NFL scouts feel the quarterback's hard-partying ways make him undraftable.