Welcome back to the PHENOM Update, PHENOM’s monthly newsletter! As everyone is enjoying peak summer – or seeking cover from the oppressive humidity as of late – we’re just getting started in our fight to pass the Endowment Tax Act (H.2824/ S.1834)!
The Massachusetts State House is set to update the upcoming budget and vote on this trailblazing bill by July 31st, so PHENOM is calling on anyone passionate about funding our public colleges to show their support!
In our #payitforward campaign on Instagram, we’re asking our followers and allies to make a short reel (up to 30 seconds) saying why the Endowment Tax Act matters to them.
With the bill promising to massively increase funding for public colleges (and potentially make them tuition-free if used to fund the Debt Free Future Act), we’d love you to let us know how this could help you or a loved one, or even what you’d want the projected $2 billion yearly revenue to go towards!
Also, write your representatives and urge them to support the Endowment Tax!!!
Related: check out PHENOM Comms’ Liam Rue’s article about why we should tax private universities’ endowments to rein in financial speculation!
Despite being nonprofits, Massachusetts’ wealthiest universities have accumulated billions of dollars from questionable ties to hedge fund managers and private equity that increasingly benefit the financiers more than the students they’re supposed to serve. Isn’t it only fair to tax billions of dollars that were earned through for-profit speculation?
In Other News:
Although originally intended to make the financial aid process a lot easier, the recent attempt to overhaul the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) has done anything but.
In the past year, due to a variety of technical glitches, students have struggled to get the application in on time and secure the financial aid they need to go to college at all.
While increased help for students in the form of FAFSA experts can mitigate the crisis, it is clear it will take more funding, ingenuity and grit from the Department of Education to dig us out of this hole.
On the bright side, the disarray from the new FAFSA updates has grown support for requiring high school students to complete the form (a.k.a. the Universal FAFSA).
This policy of mandatory FAFSA completion has been found to both make students more likely to go to college and also give states a better idea of the resources they need for their students.
How might the end of Chevron affect higher ed?
One of the latest Supreme Court rulings has sent shockwaves throughout the nation for striking down an 1984 ruling commonly known as the Chevron case. As multiple old and new federal policies are in jeopardy due to the reduced power of agencies like the Department of Education, how will this affect higher ed?
Before getting the ax, the highly-cited Chevron ruling had become indispensable to federal agencies since it gave them more discretion in interpreting certain ambiguous laws: if some statute were ambiguous, Chevron would allow agencies to interpret it as they saw fit to best serve the American people while avoiding excessive nitpicking from the courts.
Just one of the federal policies now vulnerable is the “borrower defense to repayment rule” which provides debt relief to students who were victims of fraud by their colleges. Another is the Saving on a Value Education (SAVE) plan, a new Biden administration policy that bases debt repayment on income.