Washington Takes Aim at College Endowments

Taxes

Why are we looking under rocks to find more tax money for our "representatives" in Congress to squander? Wouldn't it be better to just adjust Federal Student Aid formulas downward for those colleges that provide less student aid from their endowments?

Joe said it best.

Joe Biden said that its "Patriotic” for all Americans pay more taxes so let’s include all types of business from universities to churches. Let’s spread the wealth.

When I think of private universities

I think of the place I went to college, with an enrollment of just around 2,000 students. I know for a fact that they have several million dollars in endowment funds, the interest of which they use to fund institutional scholarships. However, unlike Yale, Harvard and Stanford, they give out a higher percentage of their funds to students. Will they be taxed to high-heaven too?

And, kcadet, contrary to popular belief, it's actually the middle class student who struggles to find assistance in the form of grants or scholarships. There are TONS of scholarships and grants available to the low income student. The middle class are stuck with tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt upon graduation from college, because, unless they had stellar grades, that's all they can really get.

College Endowments

Yale, Harvard and Stanford are liberal institutions and no doubt support increased taxation of the most wealthy tax-paying citizens, a cornerstone of Democratic-Liberal thought. Why have we been protecting these fat cats? By all means let's implement a graduated scale of taxation on college endowments, milking the wealthy ones at the highest rate. I also am not impressed with their "generosity". They have been generous only to a point - where it makes them look good. Real generosity begins when it is a true sacrifice. They're not even close.

As a Stanford student...

I was one of the ones caught in the middle on financial aid. My family is upper middle class, making just enough money to render me and my siblings ineligible for federal work-study programs.

It wasn't easy for my parents to scrape together the money, and I have a load of debt (though less than average). At Stanford, at least, the only wealthy families who are skating are those to whom the $180,000 four-year price tag is pocket change anyway, and athletes.

Now Stanford's financial aid provides many low-income students with free tuition for all four years, and provides more grants to families like mine. The system isn't perfect, I'm sure, but I know low-income students who are literally paid a stipend to attend Stanford so that they can afford textbooks. That's as it should be. A mandatory 5% payout might not be a bad thing, but universities should be allowed to grow their endowments to become less dependent on outside funding, such as money from Big Tobacco and Big Pharma.

Don't forget that Stanford, Harvard and Yale aren't just schools, they're also labs for some of the highest quality research in the nation. Just food for thought.

When I think of Yale, Harvard, and Stanford

I think of them as businesses more than anything else. They deserve no relief; they should be forced to hand over a percentage of their endowment, after every quarter million increase maybe? I wouldn’t buy too much into their “generosity” when it comes to financial aid. A lot of the students that attend those ridiculously difficult to get accepted to institutions come from very wealthy backgrounds and still get assistance. The low-income students are the ones that often find themselves in a struggle to get coverage for tuition, and all other fees. I guess it because they actually need the money AND NEED A LOT OF IT.