Treasury Sec. Steven Mnuchin is asking private schools “with significant endowments” to return their Paycheck Protection Program loans.
Mnuchin made the request Friday morning on Twitter.
“It has come to our attention that some private schools with significant endowments have taken #PPP loans. They should return them,” he wrote.
The Los Angeles Times reported Thursday the Brentwood School, one of the schools that received PPP funding, is where Mnuchin sends two of kids.
On Wednesday, The New York Times named several elite private schools that received the federal loan, including St. Andrew’s Episcopal School in Potomac, MD, where Barron Trump is enrolled as a student.
A spokesman for St. Andrew’s said in a statement that the money “will allow us to maintain our promise to support our employees and to help school families facing hardship remain” at the school next year.
Some schools that received funding are reversing course on taking the money.
The Latin School of Chicago, which disclosed a $58.5 million endowment in a recent tax filing, said it would return the loan.
“With this decision, we stand in support of all the smaller businesses and nonprofits that need this support to keep their people employed,” Randall Dunn, its head of school, said in a statement to the newspaper.
Harvard University, which boasts a large endowment of more than $40 billion, turned down federal aid from a separate fund, the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund, after it faced pressure from President Donald Trump and others.
Harvard’s move was then followed by Stanford, which requested its application be pulled from consideration, NPR reports.
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