On Wednesday, Harvard announced it would not take $8.6 million it had originally planned to spend in federal emergency relief to cover losses caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Princeton and Stanford made similar announcements.
They acted in the midst of criticism from the White House on down about billion-dollar-endowed institutions accepting federal crisis relief dollars.
A day later, Yale announced it, too, will forgo its share of the federal CARES Act, which would have amounted to $6.9 million.
The $2 trillion emergency relief act included $14 billion for colleges and universities based on the percentage of students who qualify for federal tuition assistance grants.
“Though Yale is experiencing great budgetary pressure as a result of the pandemic, the university has decided not to seek these emergency funds,” the university announced in a statement. “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.”
Click here to read the full statement.
Does not taking it increase the risk of furloughs? And when will decisions be made by Yale and the City to furlough the non-essential employees who aren't working. If there's not federal money, why keep them on the expense line item as opposed to letting the state/federal government pick up the tab?