House Republicans are considering increasing taxes on university endowments, a significant threat to some of the nation’s wealthiest schools as President Donald Trump seeks to tighten control over American higher education.
The measure is in a draft of the tax package Republicans are weighing, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to share details on the effort. The proposal would create a tiered system of taxation so that wealthy colleges and universities pay more as the size of their endowment grows, the people said.
Republicans are considering boosting the 1.4% endowment tax currently on the books to rates as high as 14% to 21%, a person familiar with the matter said.
The bill is not finalized, however, the people cautioned, and the draft could change as Republicans negotiate its terms, a complex task as the party looks to renew and expand tax breaks and find ways to pay for them with only a narrow House majority.
Targeting university endowments would be a major escalation of Trump’s fight with elite colleges and universities, which has seen the administration demand changes to school policies that reflect his priorities.
The current tax on private-school endowments ensnares many of the richest universities, like Harvard University and Yale University, as well as smaller elite institutions such as Amherst College and Williams College. Some of the wealthiest private colleges in the country boast endowments of at least $500,000 per student.
Harvard, in particular, with a $53.2 billion endowment, has been locked in a high-stakes fight with the Trump administration over its demands for changes at the school. Harvard has sued several U.S. agencies and top officials for freezing billions of dollars in federal funding. Trump has also threatened the school’s tax-exempt status, though experts say revoking that designation would be a lengthy process involving the Internal Revenue Service and the courts.
A new poll by AP-NORC out Friday shows a majority of Americans disagree with Trump’s demands that higher-education institutions make curriculum and cultural changes or face the loss of federal funding for scientific and medical research or have their tax-exempt status threatened.
The poll found that 62% of Americans support maintaining federal research funding, 72% believe “liberals, students and professors can speak freely to at least some extent,” and 84% are concerned at some level about the cost of tuition, an issue Trump has not focused on.
Trump’s 2017 tax package, which Republicans are moving to renew, implemented an endowment levy of 1.4% on net investment income, similar to one that private foundations pay. That levy generated more than $380 million from 56 colleges or universities in 2023 — though it affected just a small fraction of the 1,700 private, nonprofit US schools.
House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington floated a long list of possible budget cuts in January that included raising $10 billion over 10 years by raising the endowment tax to 14%.
Discussions over the Republican tax package are reaching a critical stage. Trump is meeting Friday with the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee — the chamber’s tax-writing panel, according to people familiar.
Trump and Representative Jason Smith will discuss the draft proposal. The committee is expected to release parts of the bill later this afternoon and the rest of the draft on Sunday night or Monday, the people said.
One of the people familiar cast the effort as a bid by Republicans to ensure that universities spend their endowments on their students and not on other initiatives disfavored by conservatives, such as diversity, equity and inclusion efforts or on challenging the Trump administration’s policies.
