WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today Independent Women’s Voice (IWV) applauded Senator JD Vance (R-OH) for introducing the College Endowment Accountability Act and for his leadership in bringing this critical legislation to the Senate floor. In response to Senate Democrats blocking this bill, Independent Women’s Voice issued a letter urging Senator Vance’s colleagues to follow his leadership and acknowledge the fact that it is long past due to treat elite universities as what they are: activism training camps with hedge fund-sized endowments attached.
In raising the excise tax on bloated university endowments from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act prior rate of 1.4% to the rate of 35%, this legislation would advance the policy recommendations proposed in Independent Women’s Forum’s (IWF) Policy Focus published last July titled “Taxing Universities.”
“American universities have not become wealthy and powerful by selling a superior product in a free market. Rather, they have relied on taxpayer subsidies and grants to the tune of trillions of dollars over decades. In exchange for that investment, universities have repaid taxpayers with unsustainable student debt, contempt, and political radicalism,” said Inez Stepman, senior policy analyst at Independent Women’s Voice.
“Universities have bankrupted and indoctrinated nearly two generations of Americans, and they’ve done it with our public money. They have failed at the basic educational mission taxpayers have entrusted them to perform,” Stepman stated in IWV’s letter to U.S. Senators.
Read IWF’s Policy Focus, “Taxing Universities,” here.
Read IWV’s letter on the College Endowment Accountability Act here.
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Independent Women’s Voice fights for women by expanding support for policy solutions that aren’t just well intended, but actually enhance freedom, opportunities, and well-being.