From WWW.FOXNEWS.COM
EXCLUSIVE: A group of House Republicans is introducing legislation to increase taxes on university endowments to ensure taxpayers do not have to foot the bill for President Biden’s more than $500 billion in student loan debt forgiveness.
Rep. Dave Joyce, the chairman of the moderate 44-member Republican Governance Group, told Fox News Digital the legislation is designed to hold higher education institutions accountable for the skyrocketing cost of a college degree.
“America’s elite universities are the silent beneficiaries of President Biden’s misguided student debt bailout,” said Joyce, R-Ohio. “These institutions need to be held accountable for their role in our nation’s ballooning student debt.
Joyce is backing the bill with two other GOP colleagues, Reps. Byron Donalds of Florida and Mayra Flores of Texas. The trio argues it is unfair for taxpayers to be saddled with the cost of Biden’s program while little is being done to force America’s colleges and universities to lower costs for students.
“Transferring $600 billion in student debt from one group of Americans to another does nothing to make education more affordable,” said Joyce. “Instead, it incentivizes wealthy universities to continue driving up their tuition costs amid record-breaking inflation.”
The legislation would increase from 1.4% to 10% the tax that universities have to pay each year on profits generated from investments or interest stemming from their endowments. The tax was created as part of former President Donald Trump’s signature 2017 tax law.
Joyce’s bill would expand the number of colleges and universities that would be subject to the tax. Currently, only higher education institutions with endowments valued at $500,000 per student are subject to the tax. The legislation would lower that threshold to $250,000 per student, forcing schools like Johns Hopkins University, Carnegie Mellon University, and Boston College to pay it.
The bill also penalizes colleges and universities that raise their net price of attendance to more than the rate of inflation for the previous three years by increasing the annual tax on endowments to 20%…. (Read more)
