Harvard currently has a $52 billion endowment on which it pays no tax: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/26/business/harvard-endowmen...
Why are progressives not bothered more by this?
Why are progressives not bothered more by this?
I can provide links if you'd like to learn. I'm just on mobile right now and it's a pain.
It would help, though, if you could describe in what way people should be bothered.
In the case of Harvard and many other institutions, it's a tax-dodge, and nothing more. Same thing with non-profit hospitals whose administrators pay themselves seven-figure salaries.
What does this article have to do with nonprofits in general?
Also the board of the nonprofit sets salaries for admin
> ... the National Association of College and University Business Officers issues a report on ... where the money [endowments] generate ends up. ... About 48 percent of investment income went to student aid ... about a quarter of the money ... went to academic programs and maintaining facilities.
To claim it's a "tax dodge, and nothing more" without elaborating is absurd.
I won't argue further with someone more interested in inflammatory statements than actually discussing.
How much of that "student aid" just covers some of the astronomical tuition Harvard charges?
What do you mean by tax dodge, in this context?
How familiar are you with taxes? Off the top of my head, people who work for non-profits have to pay withholdings and income taxes, just like the rest of us. Generally, 'business' expenses for both non-profit and for-profit organizations (whether a McDonalds, university, church) are tax-deductible. Tax rules differ between states, but being a non-profit doesn't automatically exempt you from collecting and forwarding other forms of tax, such as sales tax.
Is the issue that you don't think that any university - or perhaps specifically Harvard? - should be granted non-profit status? If that’s the case, then I'm curious what you think about the same question for religion-affiliated universities and non-profit organizations whose missions you agree with?
No, some of them operate like genuine non-profits by promoting some public good and compensate their executives only modestly. For example, the Salvation Army.
If our society lacks education we end up having people question the utility of 501(c)(3) status of universities.
You know what doesn't fall within the rubric of existing laws (or things that anyone who respect the rule of law and controlled government should be comfortable with)? Trump unilaterally using the federal agencies under his control to vengefully, punitively attack a major public institution just because he wants it to do whatever his latest personal tantrum has dictated.
His whimsical funding cuts are indeed illegal (1) and even if you agree with the government not funding certain institutions in certain ways, i'd call it a bad fucking idea to claim that the president should break his government's own federal laws to do so.
1 https://www.thefire.org/news/faq-responding-common-questions...
Better question is why aren't conservatives bothered by any of this?
People have screamed that Universities tuition fees are too expensive for the RoI. It’s a separate bipartisan issue.
Every leftist I know believes that education should be free and universally accessible. That holding capital (especially with the intent to make more capital, which is what an endowment is) is morally wrong. And that we should tax wealthy people and corporations to fund things like healthcare and education.
Constructing a strawman like this (inventing a position that progressives do not hold) and then trying to point out the hippocracy in that position is classic logical fallacy territory.