“Many of America’s so-called ‘top’ universities continue to grow massive endowments almost entirely tax-free while failing to condemn antisemitism and violence against Jewish students on their campuses. We should levy this tax on these schools’ endowments. A tax on the billions of dollars these schools have amassed would be more than enough to pay down our national debt or secure the southern border,” said Senator Cotton.

 Full text of the bill may be found here.  

 Background:

• The tax would establish a one-time, 6% tax on the 2024 value of the endowments of the universities.
• The tax applies to (1) secular institutions with endowments of at least $11.9 billion and (2) secular institutions with endowments of at least $10.5 billion that also operate a state contract college.
• Covered institutions include Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Pennsylvania, Northwestern, Columbia, Washington University, Johns Hopkins, and Cornell.
• Revenue is estimated at $16.6B