Trump says Harvard must pay back relief money

United States President Donald Trump joined mounting criticism of Harvard University last Tuesday, saying the richest university in the country would pay back US$8.6 million in relief money from a coronavirus stimulus package that the president himself signed last month, writes Anemona Hartocollis for The New York Times.

“Harvard’s going to pay back the money,” Trump said at his evening news briefing, adding, “They have one of the largest endowments anywhere in the country, maybe in the world.”

The US$2 trillion relief package signed by Trump on 27 March included US$14 billion for higher education. The recipients ranged from the Ivy League to beauty schools, but Harvard’s allocation generated withering criticism on social media and among Republican politicians this week because of its large endowment – US$40.9 billion as of June. Critics said it was unseemly for such a wealthy university to be getting taxpayer money when 22 million people had recently joined the unemployment rolls.
Full report on The New York Times site