Like all universities, Stanford is facing significant financial pressures during this time of unprecedented uncertainty. The combination of lost revenue, increased costs, and a market downturn that could have a substantial impact on our endowment are all expected to negatively affect the university’s finances for some time to come.

However, we realize that this crisis represents an existential threat for many of the smaller colleges and universities that are such a critical part of the fabric of higher learning in the United States. We believe strongly in the importance of keeping these institutions viable in order to provide access to higher education for as many students as possible, and we had concluded that this should be a priority.  Therefore, Monday morning we contacted the Department of Education to ask that our application for relief funds under the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund section of the CARES act be rescinded.

Since half of these funds were to be directly applied to grants for students, we want to reassure our students that we remain fully committed to the financial aid that has been promised to them.