Penn for PILOTs, a group of university staff and faculty, also characterized the contribution as a "step" and hoped for a more systemic change that would more fully fund the district's needs.

For some university critics, the mere mention of Penn’s pledge as a “gift” or “donation” will rankle. Those critics believe Penn owes the city’s school system some sort of regular, voluntary payment.

The University of Pennsylvania’s announcement of a gift to the Philadelphia public schools is a welcome first step toward resolving the debt that the university owes our city's public school system. Above all, it testifies to the power of mobilization by public school students, teachers, city leaders, and members of the Penn community. We are committed to continuing that mobilization to ensure that Penn pays its full fair share on an ongoing basis.

In 2015, a research report by The Education Trust, an independent national education policy organization, found that Pennsylvania has the second worse school funding gap in the nation … In recent years, members of the Penn community have called on the University to make Payments in Lieu of Taxes to support the Philadelphia School District and shrink the education gap. PILOTS are financial contributions that property tax-exempt organizations voluntarily make to local governments. 

“We know anything we give can’t compare at all with the magnitude that Penn paying PILOTs [payments in lieu of taxes] would have,” said Keri Zhang, editor and chief of the student-run Penn yearbook. “Hopefully, we can make some small steps that build toward real impact.”

The Record, Penn's official undergraduate yearbook, plans to donate a percentage of its profits from 2021 yearbooks sales to The School District of Philadelphia in response to Penn’s refusal to pay Payments in Lieu of Taxes, known as PILOTs.

“The fundamental issue is that property taxes are the bread and butter of school funding, and the unjust and unconstitutional lack of funding for our public schools is a key reason why so much inequity exists across our city. Philadelphia’s greatest non-profit actors – many of which don’t pay property taxes – cannot be silent on this issue, and indeed should be proactive on this at every level," Gym said.

Despite incurring financial losses because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Penn’s endowment has increased from $14.7 billion to $14.9 billion for fiscal year 2020.

“Penn likes to push this narrative of what they do as a school, like the fact that they support West [Philadelphia] though the Netter Center and other programs, but when you dig deeper and you look behind Penn’s lies, you see that there are so many issues Penn is completely unwilling to be transparent on,” Singh said.