Princeton, Yale join Harvard after public outcry
Two more Ivy League schools – Princeton University and Yale University – have joined Harvard University by publicly stating they will not take the money allocated to them as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act.
On Wednesday, less than 24 hours after President Donald Trump called on Harvard not to take the funds, given its $40 billion endowment, the Ivy League institution released a statement asking the Department of Education to redirect those funds to smaller colleges in Massachusetts.
Earlier the same day, Stanford University became the first major institution to say it will not accept the money, acknowledging the “existential threat” to smaller colleges.
Now, both Princeton and Yale have also said they will not take the multi-million-dollar assistance, given their multi-billion-dollar endowments.
“Princeton has determined it will not accept funding allocated under the CARES Act. Princeton has not yet received any of these funds, and never requested any of these funds,” the New Jersey Ivy League said in a tweet.
In a statement published to its website, Yale University said, “though Yale is experiencing great budgetary pressure as a result of the pandemic, the university has decided not to seek these emergency funds. Instead, we hope that the Department of Education will use Yale’s portion of the funding to support colleges and universities in Connecticut whose continued existence is threatened by the current crisis.”
Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale all have endowments worth billions of dollars, as Campus Reform has reported. Harvard’s endowment is the largest in the country, at $40.9 billion, while Yale’s endowment is the third-largest in the U.S., at $30.3 billion. Stanford’s endowment – $27.7 billion – ranks as the fourth largest in America. Princeton ranks fifth when it comes to the nation’s largest endowments, with $26.1 billion.
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