Philip H. Knight, co-founder of Nike, Inc., pledged $400 million to Stanford University last year (Gioia, 2016; Stanford University, 2016a). The gift will partially endow a $750 million fund intended to support 100 graduate students per year, with awards typically lasting for three years. The resulting Knight-Hennessy Scholars program will be the largest fully endowed scholarship program in the world (Stanford University, 2016b). This is great news for Stanford and a small group of high-ability students, but it is also emblematic of the serious, systematic inequities that plague our higher education system. This inequality is, to some degree, a function of a tax code blind to the disparate resources and educational missions of higher education institutions. New policies may be needed if higher education leaders wish to align resources with broader access imperatives. Voluntary support of higher education's core academic missions is admirable, but large contributions to wealthy institutions such as Stanford exacerbate the existing imbalance of financial resources among colleges and universities. The proposal outlined here, or one similar to it provides a starting point for a robust conversation about the ways in which institutions, endowments, and federal tax policy could be better aligned to support the public good.