Everyone loses except the rich, as usual...

College that charges no tuition loses out in tax bill

By MICHAEL STRATFORD

A provision meant to protect a Christian college in Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's home state was scratched Tuesday when Republicans made last-minute tweaks to their tax bill after a procedural glitch.

The Senate is expected to vote Tuesday evening on a revised bill that removes a provision that had excluded Berea College in Berea, Ky. from a new 1.4 percent tax on private university endowments. Berea does not charge tuition and enrolls low-income students.

The endowment tax, under the GOP tax bill that cleared the House earlier on Tuesday, would have applied only to colleges with at least 500 “tuition-paying” students, a provision that was narrowly tailored to help Berea and other colleges that don’t charge tuition.

But the Senate parliamentarian ruled the “tuition-paying” student requirement out of order, and Republicans likely will have to drop it from the bill so that it meets the Byrd rule, which bars "extraneous matter" from a piece of reconciliation legislation.

In a statement, Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said they would raise a procedural point to force Republicans to remove the "tuition-paying" requirement and two other provisions from the bill.

“In the mad dash to provide tax breaks for their billionaire campaign contributors, our Republican colleagues forgot to comply with the rules of the Senate. We applaud the parliamentarian for determining that three provisions in this disastrous bill are in violation of the Byrd rule," they said.

Robert Steurer, an aide to McConnell, said in a statement that Berea offers a "quality education" for students with significant financial need.

"Instead of paying tuition with money, students pay by working jobs on campus or in the local community," Steurer said. "With Senate Democrats choosing to make it harder for schools like Berea to serve low-income students, Senator McConnell will continue working with Congressman Andy Barr and Berea College in fighting for students to earn a college degree. "

Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.), whose district includes the college, said on the House floor last month that Berea students are often first-generation and from Appalachia. "Berea could not fulfill its unique and special mission" without a healthy endowment, he said.

The provision was added in the Senate to help Berea, which enrolls about 1,600 students and describes itself as “an educational institution still firmly rooted in its historic purpose ‘to promote the cause of Christ.'"

The school says it aims to help its staff and students “work toward both personal goals and a vision of a world shaped by Christian values.”

The school is unusual in that it has a small student body and a large endowment of $1 billion — which would otherwise make it subject to the endowment tax — but doesn’t charge tuition. Like other “work colleges,” students agree to hold a job for 10 to 15 hours per week in exchange for free attendance.

“When you combine a hasty process with a bad idea, you get unfortunate results,” said Terry W. Hartle, senior vice president of the American Council on Education. The group, which represents colleges and universities in Washington, has lobbied heavily against the tax on all university endowments.

"This is a metaphor for why the bill is a big step in the wrong direction,” Hartle said. “They’ve just decided to tax a school that only serves low-income students and waives tuition for all students to pay for corporate tax cuts."

Hartle said that in addition to Berea College, it appears that there are two other schools that could now face the endowment tax without the carve-out for students who don’t pay tuition. He cited Principia College, a private liberal arts school in Illinois, and Princeton Theological Seminary as schools whose enrollments hover around 500 and could be affected by small shifts in calculating the number of “tuition-paying” students.

Lyle Roelofs, the college’s president, also told the Lexington Herald-Leader last month that the school was working with Barr, McConnell and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to exclude the school from the tax.

"We are very disappointed with the latest developments on the Hill," Roelofs said in a statement Tuesday night. "Berea College uses its entire endowment to educate students who could not otherwise afford to attend college, serving them on a no-tuition basis. We agree that there need to be incentives for schools to make higher education accessible to all students, but it seems so unfortunate that the political strife over tax reform in our country will result in greater difficulty for colleges seeking to serve low-income students."

The endowment tax in the House bill also would have applied to the College of the Ozarks, another work college that doesn’t charge tuition. But it no longer appeared to be subject to the tax after the Senate narrowed the endowment tax to apply only to larger endowments.