The nation’s eight Ivy League schools, the most private and prestigious schools in the country, are set to receive over $60 million in coronavirus funding, as reported by the Daily Caller.
The eight schools in question are Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, and Yale University. Together, the eight schools have a combined endowment value of over $140 billion as of last year. Five of them ended the year with operational surpluses totaling over $200 million.
The funding comes from the CARES Act, signed by President Trump last month, which designated $14 billion to over 5,000 educational institutions across the country. Although schools that receive funding must agree to divert at least half of it to students who are directly impacted by the coronavirus outbreak, the decision to give so much money to the elite Ivy League schools was criticized by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos as a “poor use of taxpayer money.”