Harvard Getting $9 Million in Coronavirus Aid, While Sitting on $40 Billion Endowment
“the government has mandated that at least half — $4,327,874 — be reserved for emergency financial aid grants to students”
Why is Harvard getting a single penny of this relief aid?
The Harvard Crimson reports:
Harvard Nets Nearly $9 Million in Coronavirus Aid from Federal CARES Act
Harvard University will receive nearly $9 million in aid from the federal government through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, the Department of Education announced last week.
The CARES Act — the largest economic stimulus package in American history — was signed into law on March 27. It allocates nearly $14 billion to support higher education institutions during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Of the $8,655,748 Harvard is slated to receive, the government has mandated that at least half — $4,327,874 — be reserved for emergency financial aid grants to students.
The Department of Education will distribute the first $6.28 billion to colleges and universities to cover expenses such as course materials, technology, food, and housing students have incurred “related to disruptions in their education due to the COVID-19 outbreak,” according to a April 9 press release.
The Department of Education is requiring universities to sign a certification agreeing to the conditions of use before they can access the funding, but each school may allocate the financial aid funds at their own discretion.
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Comments
This. This frosts me. The aid was supposed to go to places that could not survive without help. Harvard. Kennedy Art Center. Trump’s properties. It goes along with the story I heard about a resort-community city in New Mexico; the council debated suspending property taxes, but eventually decided that the city has bills and obligations, and therefore cannot do without their income. I even heard that the British House of Lords was refusing to meet VIRTUALLY without their daily compensation.
There is a time to be paid; taxes have a place in a civilization. But the “rulers” need to be careful about it. To say “we have bills” and then ignore that the people who pay them also have bills? For multi-billion dollar institutions to say “give me” – that needs to stop.
This is obscene. What’s even more appalling, Harvard is taking the money. They don’t have enough?
Add to this the $1.7 trillion the Fed has doled out to hedge funds since last December–seems the going was good when the insane high risk bets were paying off, but when they went south, well, their problem became our problem–and you come away with the notion that the only way to save this republic is to burn Washington DC to the ground. We’ll smuggle Trump out first, if he agrees to do a tutorial on the history of fiat currency.
A real journalist would do the necessary digging and report which Harvard alum elected official(s) pushed for this.
This is an abomination but my understanding is that it’s straight forward math with the amount doled out dependent on the number of students enrolled. There was no need based evaluation as with the SBA PPP loans where businesses had to attest that they need this money in the short term. So Harvard, with its $40B endowment gets money.
Arizona State got the biggest check and Ohio State got $43M even though it has an endowment of $5.3B.
$9M could keep 20+ small businesses afloat until we can ride this thing out but for Harvard its a rounding error on the endowment. Harvard should take this money and create a fund for local businesses.
Another outrage is Ruth’s Criss Steakhouse which managed to finagle $20M in PPP loans by applying using two subsidiaries ($10M each) despite the fact that it employs more than 10X the number of people the program was created to support.
What is the purpose of an endowment fund if not to help an organization to weather difficult times?