哈佛大学、麻省理工学院等新英格兰大学准备应对可能的捐赠税增加

【中美创新时报2025 年 3 月 26 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）随着国会共和党人正在考虑几项针对大型捐赠基金的提案，全国各地的顶尖学院和大学正准备大幅提高投资回报税率。这项拟议的改革可能会对美国最负盛名的学校造成毁灭性打击，其中包括至少十几所拥有大量捐赠基金的新英格兰著名校园。《波士顿环球报》记者希拉里·伯恩斯对此作了下述报道。

共和党人正在考虑增加大学捐赠税，以帮助减少国家赤字，并作为迫使大学遵守特朗普政府优先事项的潜在杠杆。目前，美国最富有的私立学院和大学对捐赠投资回报征收 1.4% 的消费税，这是特朗普总统第一任期内设立的一项税种，尽管遭到大学的强烈反对。

“如果学校选择坐拥 10 亿美元、100 亿美元或 200 亿美元的捐赠基金，让学生从纳税人那里借钱，然后在学生不还钱时庆祝——那么看到这些学校真正投入更多精力将是一件好事，”华盛顿特区右倾的美国企业研究所教育政策研究主任里克·赫斯说。

顶尖大学能够毫无阻碍地吸收 1.4% 的税收，但高等教育观察家表示，在特朗普政府的政策已经威胁到其他重要收入来源的情况下，进一步增加税收对学校来说将是灾难性的。税率增加十倍将使该地区的顶尖学校每年损失数亿美元，从而拿走用于经济援助和学术项目的资金。

韦尔斯利学院经济学教授菲尔·莱文估计，在捐赠基金回报率平均的一年里，如果实施 14% 的税率，14 所新英格兰学院每年将共同缴纳约 16 亿美元的税款。

“这是一大笔钱，”莱文说。

特朗普政府已经取消了研究补助金，并大幅削减了大学和医院用来支付关键科学研究费用的联邦研究资金。由于反移民言论、签证处理延迟和不确定的资金状况，国际入学人数可能下降，这也危及了大学的财政状况。

捐赠基金是一种投资基金，其中包含捐赠者长期以来对学校的累积捐赠，通常用于支持私立大学的大部分运营预算，并涵盖慷慨的财政援助计划、学术项目和捐赠教职员工职位。

例如，在阿默斯特学院，学校 36 亿美元捐赠基金的回报覆盖了年度运营预算的一半以上，负责该学院联邦关系工作的劳伦斯·克鲁茨说。

“正是因为数十年来的捐赠支持，就阿默斯特而言，实际上是几个世纪以来的捐赠支持，我们才能够承诺为学生、教师和员工提供支持，”克鲁兹说。

学院捐赠收益通常应捐赠者的要求而受到限制，旨在永久支持该机构未来数年的发展。学校不得动用本金，只能动用投资收益。

“人们错误地认为捐赠本质上就像一个巨大的储蓄账户，”克鲁兹说。“实际上，捐赠是数十年来学院收到的礼物的集合。”

近年来，该地区的许多学校都依靠捐赠收益来增加学生经济援助，尤其是针对收入低于 20 万美元的家庭，以解决公众对高昂标价的担忧。例如，哈佛大学上周成为最新一所宣布家庭收入低于 10 万美元的本科生免学费的大学，家庭收入低于 20 万美元的本科生免学费。哈佛大学的捐赠基金价值 532 亿美元，2024 年该校为本科生提供的助学金为 2.5 亿美元，比去年增长 6%。

华盛顿特区至少有两项捐赠税提案正在获得支持，其中包括德克萨斯州共和党众议员特洛伊·内尔斯 (Troy Nehls) 于 1 月提出的一项法案，该法案将提高对每名学生资产至少 50 万美元的私立大学捐赠基金征收的消费税，至 21% 的公司税率。

内尔斯在 1 月份的一份声明中表示，拥有“巨额”捐赠基金的大学“大幅提高学费”，而缴纳的税率“远低于大多数勤劳的美国人”，这是“不可接受的”。

“我的法案将对拥有巨额捐赠基金的精英大学发出警告，要求它们遵守与公司相同的税收标准，”内尔斯说。

另一项提案将把捐赠基金回报税提高十倍，达到 14%。

副总统 JD Vance 于 2023 年提出一项法案，将大型私立大学捐赠基金收入的税率提高到 35%。尽管参议院民主党人阻止了这项提议，但它表明了特朗普政府对此类税收的态度，即对精英机构实施制裁，他们认为这些机构从美国纳税人那里拿走的钱比他们返还的多得多。

特朗普及其竞选盟友承诺利用联邦资金和税收作为一种工具，从他们所说的控制大学的“激进左派”手中“夺回”大学。

万斯当时在参议院发言时表示，大学“让整整一代美国人背负了超过 1 万亿美元的学生债务，我的许多朋友希望俄亥俄州的水管工为学生债务减免买单，但我认为，如果大学造成了问题，总统先生，他们应该为此买单。”

对富有的大学捐赠基金征税具有一定的两党吸引力。在马萨诸塞州，民主党人提议对捐赠基金超过 10 亿美元的私立大学征收 2.5% 的年度消费税。这将使哈佛大学每年损失约 12 亿美元。该法案在上届立法会议上被否决后，最近被重新提交。

批评该提案的人表示，提高大学捐赠税不会减少联邦政府 1.8 万亿美元的赤字。 2023 年，56 所学院和大学需要缴纳联邦捐赠税，共计 3.8 亿美元，其中包括哈佛大学、麻省理工学院、布朗大学、耶鲁大学、威廉姆斯学院、科尔比学院和阿默斯特学院等新英格兰地区的学校。

缅因州科尔比学院校长大卫·格林 (David Greene) 表示：“这实际上更多的是惩罚，而不是创收，我们应该认识到，这将对从这些钱中受益的学生造成后续伤害。”

拥有大量捐赠的学校往往为低收入和中等收入学生提供最高数额的经济援助，这通常使它们成为获得录取的优秀学生最实惠的选择。

美国全国大学和大学商务官员协会最近发布的大学捐赠报告发现，超过 48% 的捐赠支出用于学生经济援助。约 18% 用于学术项目，11% 用于捐赠教职员工职位。

麻省理工学院的投资回报占年度预算的 40% 以上，“既能进行强有力的研究，也能提供强大的学生援助”，发言人 Kimberly Allen 说。艾伦说，麻省理工学院拥有 246 亿美元的捐赠，因此可以为收入低于 20 万美元的家庭提供免费学费。

“用税收削减我们的捐赠收入会损害所有这些努力——并会削弱美国学生、创新和竞争力，”艾伦说。

莱文说，领先高等教育机构的财务困境可能会对它们培育的区域经济产生连锁反应，包括大波士顿地区。

“你会削弱所有 [有助于] 波士顿经济实力的学校，”莱文说。 “当你引进世界上最优秀的人才时，这不仅对我们今天有帮助，他们往往还会留在这里……并帮助经济增长。”

顶尖学校及其游说者正在努力教育各个政治派别的立法者和公众了解他们经常被误解的捐赠基金，包括它们可以和不能用于什么。

例如，普林斯顿大学校长克里斯托弗·艾斯格鲁伯最近在 1 月 29 日致社区的一封信中为常春藤盟校的捐赠基金辩护，将投资基金比作“必须在所有者余生每年提供收入的退休年金”。普林斯顿大学的年度捐赠基金支付率约为 5%，为该大学 2024 年预算的约 57% 提供资金，包括为超过 70% 的学生提供经济援助。

尽管如此，一些高等教育观察家表示，该国最富有的学校应该采取更多措施招收更多低收入和中等收入学生。

佛罗里达州高等教育研究和咨询公司 HEA Group 总裁迈克尔·伊茨科维茨 (Michael Itzkowitz) 表示：“这是一个扩大招生范围、吸纳学业优秀低收入和中等收入学生的好机会，无论是否面临额外税收，这些机构都应该展现领导力。”

题图：哈佛大学。波士顿环球报的布莱克·尼森

附原英文报道：

Harvard, MIT among New England universities bracing for potential tax increase on endowments

By Hilary Burns Globe Staff,Updated March 25, 2025 

Harvard University in Cambridge.Blake Nissen for The Boston Globe

Top colleges and universities across the nation are bracing for a sharp increase in the tax rate they pay on investment returns as Republicans in Congress mull several proposals to target large endowments. This proposed reform could be a devastating blow to the nation’s most prestigious schools, including at least a dozen of New England’s storied campuses with large endowments.

Republicans are considering increases to the university endowment tax to help reduce the national deficit and as a potential lever to force universities to comply with the Trump administration’s priorities. The nation’s wealthiest private colleges and universities currently pay an excise tax of 1.4 percent on endowment investment returns, a levy established during President Trump’s first term despite heavy pushback from universities.

“If institutions choose to sit on a $1 billion, or a $10 billion, or a $20 billion endowment while having students borrow money from taxpayers, and then celebrate when the students don’t repay that — it’d be nice to see those institutions actually putting more skin in the game,” said Rick Hess, director of education policy studies at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.

Top universities were able to absorb the 1.4 percent tax without much disruption, but higher education watchers say further increases would be disastrous for schools at a time when Trump administration policies are already threatening other vital sources of revenue. A tenfold increase in the tax rate would cost the region’s top schools hundreds of millions annually, taking away from funds earmarked for financial aid and academic programs.

Phil Levine, a professor of economics at Wellesley College, estimates that in a year with average endowment returns, 14 New England colleges would collectively pay around $1.6 billion annually in taxes if a 14 percent rate is implemented.

“That’s a lot of money,” Levine said.

The Trump administration is already canceling research grants and slashing federal research funding that universities and hospitals rely on to cover overhead for critical scientific research. Also endangering university finances are potential declines in international enrollment due to anti-immigration rhetoric, delays in visa processing, and an uncertain funding landscape.

Endowments, which are investment funds containing the accumulated gifts to schools from donors over time, often support large portions of private colleges’ operating budgets and cover generous financial aid packages, as well as academic programs and endowed faculty positions.

At Amherst College, for example, returns on the school’s $3.6 billion endowment cover more than half of the annual operating budget, said Lawrence Kluttz, who leads the college’s federal relations efforts.

“It is only because of endowment support over the decades, in Amherst’s case actually centuries, that we’re able to make commitments to access and to support of our students, faculty, and staff,” Kluttz said.

College endowment proceeds are usually restricted at the request of donors and intended to last in perpetuity to support the institution for years to come. Schools are not allowed to spend the principal, only investment gains.

“There is a mistaken perception that an endowment is essentially like a massive savings account,” Kluttz said. “In reality, the endowment is a collection of gifts given to the college over the decades.”

Many schools across the region have relied on endowment proceeds to increase student financial aid in recent years, especially for families earning under $200,000, to address public concern about sky-high sticker prices. Harvard, for example, last week became the latest university to say it will be free for undergraduates from families with household incomes under $100,000, and no tuition will be charged to families with income under $200,000. Harvard’s endowment is valued at $53.2 billion, and the university spent $250 million on financial aid for undergraduates in 2024, up 6 percent from a year earlier.

At least two endowment tax proposals are gaining traction in Washington, D.C., including a bill Representative Troy Nehls, a Texas Republican, proposed in January that would raise the excise tax levied on private university endowments with assets of at least $500,000 per student to the corporate rate of 21 percent.

Nehls said in a January statement that it is “unacceptable” that universities with “massive” endowments have “significantly increased tuition” while paying a tax rate that is “far lower than what most hardworking Americans pay.”

“My bill would put elite universities with massive endowments on notice by holding them to the same tax standard as corporations,” Nehls said.

A separate proposal would increase the tax on endowment returns tenfold, to 14 percent.

Vice President JD Vance introduced a bill in 2023 to increase the tax rate on income from large private university endowments to 35 percent. Although Senate Democrats blocked that proposal, it’s indicative of the Trump administration’s posture toward such taxes as sanctions on elite institutions they see as having taken from American taxpayers much more than they’ve given back.

Trump and his allies on the campaign trail promised to use federal funding and taxation as a tool to “reclaim” universities from the “radical leftists” they say control them.

Colleges have “burdened an entire generation of Americans with over $1 trillion of student debt, student debt relief that many of my friends on the other side would like plumbers in Ohio to pay for, but I think if the universities cause the problem, Mr. President, they ought to pay for it,” Vance said on the Senate floor at the time.

Taxing wealthy university endowments has some bipartisan appeal. In Massachusetts, Democrats have proposed subjecting private universities with endowments over $1 billion to an annual excise tax of 2.5 percent on endowment assets. It would cost Harvard University about $1.2 billion a year. The bill was recently refiled after dying in the Legislature last session.

Critics of the proposals say higher taxes on university endowments would not make a dent in the federal government’s $1.8 trillion deficit. In 2023, 56 colleges and universities were subject to the federal endowment tax and paid a total of $380 million, including schools across New England, such as Harvard, MIT, Brown University, Yale University, Williams College, Colby College, and Amherst College.

“It really is about punishment more than it is about revenue generation, and we should just recognize that that’s going to have downstream harm to the students who would benefit from those dollars,” said David Greene, president of Colby in Maine.

Schools with large endowments tend to offer the highest amounts of financial aid to low- and middle-income students, often making them the most affordable option for top-performing students who gain admission.

The National Association of College and University Business Officers’ most recent report on university endowments found that more than 48 percent of endowment spending went to student financial aid. About 18 percent went to academic programs and 11 percent was spent on endowed faculty positions.

At MIT, investment returns provide more than 40 percent of the annual budget, “enabling both robust research and strong student aid,” spokesperson Kimberly Allen said. The university’s $24.6 billion endowment allows MIT to offer free tuition for families earning less than $200,000, Allen said.

“Cutting into our endowment revenue with taxes would hurt all these efforts – and would undercut American students, innovation, and competitiveness,” Allen said.

Financial trouble at leading higher education institutions will likely create ripple effects for regional economies nurtured by them, including Greater Boston’s, Levine said.

“You are going to weaken all the schools [that contribute to the] strengths of Boston’s economy,” Levine said. “When you bring in the best minds in the world, that doesn’t just help us today, they often stay here … and help grow the economy.”

Top schools and their lobbyists are working to educate lawmakers across the political spectrum as well as the public about their often misunderstood endowment funds, including what they can and can’t be used for.

Princeton University president Christopher Eisgruber, for example, recently defended the Ivy League school’s endowment in a Jan. 29 letter to the community, comparing the investment funds to “a retirement annuity that must provide income every year for the remainder of the owner’s life.” Princeton’s annual endowment payout rate is about 5 percent, funding about 57 percent of the university’s 2024 budget, including financial aid for more than 70 percent of students.

Still, some higher education watchers said the country’s wealthiest schools should do more to enroll more low- and middle-income students.

“There’s an opportunity to expand enrollment to academically talented low- and moderate-income students, and these institutions should show leadership whether they are being faced with additional taxes or not,” said Michael Itzkowitz, president of HEA Group, a higher education research and consulting firm in Florida.