<p>Why should taxpayers whose children may wish to pursue careers in the arts, basic science, the military, teaching, or medicine have to subsidize the training of future hedge fund executives?</p>
<p>Are you sure that you are “subsidizing” the ivies? They are private institutions, so I don’t think they get any money from the government or from your taxes.</p>
<p>If you take away the Ivy League’s tax exempt status what do you do about Cornell’s NY State endowed schools? Also, what about every other private college in the country? Why should Harvard have to pay taxes, but Stanford and MIT not because they are Pac 10 and D3.</p>
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Not everyone in the ivy league goes on to work on wall street. It’s just a very visible minority. At my school, and others in this great football conference, many students go on to join teach for america, some go on to be full time teachers, and others go on to be professors. Grads like John Kerry (Yale) join the army. Have you seen the number of premeds at Penn, Cornell, Columbia, and Harvard? I think ivies produce enough doctors to fit your requirement of students pursuing medicine.</p>
<p>I’ve heard that Penn is the largest employer in Philly with HUP (the hospital) being the second largest. Penn also does many services for the surrounding areas while also working to expand financial aid more and more so the middle class can have greater access to top schools. I’m sure the rest of the schools in the Ivy League do a lot of the same.</p>
<p>Venkat makes a good point - the Ivies don’t just train future hedge fund executives. They do a lot for their respective communities. Also, I’m pretty sure the only Ivy that you would be subsidizing is Cornell (and you would only be subsidizing some of its colleges and only if you’re a NY state resident). And the colleges at Cornell that get money from the state aren’t (for the most part) training future executives. They educate students with a focus on serving the community (which is why they are subsidized in the first place). Take Cornell’s College of Human Ecology, for example. Students in the college help develop fabric and material that is fire-resistant to better protect fire fighters. Chances are students involved in this project aren’t aspiring to work on Wall Street.</p>
<p>As far as I know, they’re all private institutions. There is the point about Cornell, but again, most Americans are not subsidizing that school with their money, unless they are in NY. Most are not subsidized at all by taxpayers, unlike public state schools.</p>
<p>I think engineering probably qualifies as a public good, particularly civil engineering. but, to the extent that they’re making money off of patents that were the result of government research, then yea – Stanford and MIT, too.</p>
<p>I hope the OP realizes that a lot of the Ivies’ endowments go to financial aid for low-income students. I have a lot of friends who came to Yale partially because it was cheaper for them than their state school.</p>
<p>I don’t understand what the OP means about taxpayer dollars. Taxpayer dollars flow to private institutions like the Ivies in the form of Pell grants…but Pell Grant funds also go to for-profit, non-exempt institutions as well. So if Harvard lost its tax-exempt status tomorrow, what would change about taxpayer dollars? Are you hoping to see federal research funds cut off? I guess I should say, can the OP clarify what he or she meant?</p>
<p>The bigger issue may be for local communities who lose the property tax revenue.</p>
<p>I didn’t realize we had so many tax attorneys. We could get into specific details like Pell grants and government guaranteed loans. But, for the moment let’s just stick with the idea that to the extent any person (natural or corporate) is exempted or excused from paying taxes, that they are being subsidized by the rest of us (assuming we do pay taxes.)</p>
<p>By that logic, taxpayers are subsidizing nonprofit charities and organizations simply by virtue of those organizations being tax exempt. If an organization is not directly receiving government money, then it is not directly subsidized by taxpayers.</p>
<p>At many of these schools where over 50% percent of the students receive some form of financial aid, actually there are very few low income (pell grant recipient) students at the ivies. The bulk of the FA aid goes to families who are not low income, but still have a financial need (as there are considerably more of them than there are low income students).</p>
<p>merlin13, arbiter213 - be that as it may, the threshold question remains, should the Ivy League (and hangers-on) keep their tax exempt status? Or, to put it another way, why should they be exempt in the first place?</p>
<p>If you were to tax the Ivies, you’d have to tax all educational non-for profits. So your question is actually “Why are any private schools tax exempt?”</p>