The Republican tax reform bill unveiled last week takes aim at things that range from tuition waivers for university employees and university endowments to deductions for interest payments on student loans — prompting higher education lobbying groups on Monday to tell Congress that the bill “heads in the wrong direction.”
“It would increase the cost of college and impede efforts to develop the highly-skilled workforce needed to propel our nation’s economy forward,” Peter McPherson, president of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, stated in a letter to US Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas., chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, and US Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., ranking member of the committee.
In a separate letter to the same Congressmen and signed by more than 40 higher education organizations, Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, expressed “grave concerns” about the proposed tax bill.
“This legislation, taken in its entirety, would discourage participation in postsecondary education, make college more expensive for those who do enroll, and undermine the financial stability of public and private, two-year and four-year colleges and universities,” Mitchell’s letter states.
The letter notes that the bill’s provisions would increase the cost to students attending college by more than $65 billion between 2018 and 2027. “This is not in America’s national interest,” Mitchell argues in his letter.
Both letters build on previous statements from the organizations and expound upon how specific provisions of the tax reform bill — known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act — would impact colleges and universities and the students they serve. The changes would impact students in ways broad and general as well as on an individual level, the organizations maintain.
For instance, the ACE letter notes that a proposed excise tax based on the investment income of private colleges and universities would ultimately eat away at the endowments that the schools use to help students afford college, among other things.
