Dear President Trump,
I am writing to you in response to the statement you made regarding Harvard University, where I am currently an undergraduate, about not accepting the $8.6 million it was set to receive from the coronavirus relief bill. In a press conference on April 21, you said you stated that Harvard ‘shouldn’t be taking’ the money. Harvard, pressured by the direct and public nature of the request, made the decision to turn down the relief money. While you may believe this to be fair, I would like to challenge you to think about the fact that everyone — rich and poor — is struggling amidst this global pandemic.
In your statement, you invoked Harvard’s $40 billion endowment as a reason why Harvard should not be offered relief funds. However, from your experience as a businessman, I am sure you know an endowment is not a bank account, nor is it simply a giant pile of cash. Harvard’s endowment includes investments and stocks, which are fueled by a functioning economy. While the economy flounders, Harvard’s endowment is not profitable. In fact, Harvard is taking a significant financial hit, just like the rest of the country, as it works through the pandemic. To ignore this reality is irresponsible, yet that is what you do in your denial of the relief funds to Harvard.
Harvard could have used the relief money to reimburse students’ emergency travel home, provide emergency financial aid to help students through the transition to online learning, or help fund a myriad of other support systems that would have benefitted the most vulnerable students in the Harvard community. These measures would have vastly improved students’ wellbeing and safety. However, by denying the emergency funding, you have diminished the University’s ability to pay for these resources, therefore diminishing Harvard’s ability to directly help their students.
Now, in addition to the denial of funds, you have also placed an undue burden on the student body. However, this time it is in the form of a scholarship tax that has a disproportionately negative impact on the most financially vulnerable students. For the 2019-20 school year, room and board at Harvard cost a total of $17,682, however, many students received financial aid to cover this cost. That aid is now being taxed at a rate between 10% and 37%, depending on each family’s specific financial circumstances — the larger the scholarship, the higher it gets taxed, as if it were money in a trust or estate. This new tax law means that the poorest students, who are receiving the most financial aid, are getting taxed the most. As noted in the New York Times, this effectively treats low-income students as if they were “trust-fund babies.” In reality, any one of these rates is too high: Since scholarships are not liquid assets, they should not be taxed at all.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the financial reality has become even more absurd and unnerving. Harvard made it a priority to ensure students on financial aid could still complete their semester without significant disadvantages due to financial concerns. Students paying a subsidized or full room and board are receiving a partial refund because of the switch to virtual learning. On top of that, Harvard gave students on financial aid direct funds to help them obtain the necessary resources to finish their semester online. As a student on full financial aid, I received just under $5,000. Friends with similar financial aid packages informed me that they had also received similar amounts. While the exact dollar amount of funds distributed by Harvard to its students on financial aid is unknown, the fact that 55% of undergraduates receive some financial aid and 20% of all undergraduates receive full financial aid, means that Harvard likely distributed millions to its student body amidst this global crisis.
But now, much of this money will be heavily taxed. The financial aid I received from Harvard this semester, which came in the form of direct cash and not a normal scholarship, will be redirected back to the federal government. I am not alone: The 20% of Harvard families receiving full financial aid may find themselves in a similar situation. Plus, every student on partial financial aid is paying some form of taxes on their scholarship to the government, even if they are not taxed as heavily as students receiving full financial aid. Mr. President, how can you justify taking money from Harvard students during a global pandemic, especially given that Harvard did not even end up accepting funds from the federal government through the coronavirus relief bill?
Now that Harvard has not accepted relief funds from the federal government, I implore you not to drain money from the Harvard community. Your administration needs to make an emergency amendment to the tax law so that my fellow students — and students all across the country — do not have to pay this unjustifiable tax during a global health emergency.
Writing this letter feels like writing into a void, but there is hope inside of me that you might listen, or even understand. While you refuse to recognize the plight of ordinary people around the country, in times of crisis, people are desperate to believe that their leaders are listening, empathetic to their needs, and cognizant of their realities.
I wrote this letter out of hope. Hope that, although you and your administration are failing in your response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the principles of empathy, integrity, and honesty still stand and thrive through this country’s leaders and its people. It is my hope that you will take this request into consideration and alleviate the economic hardship caused by your scholarship tax — during a global pandemic, this is the least you can do.
Sincerely,
Perrin Price
Image source: Flickr/Gage Skidmore