New York College Tax Exemption Bills Need Progressive Solution

In early December, lawmakers in the New York State Assembly and Senate introduced bills to allow for the repeal of property tax exemptions for private universities. The bills initially aimed to target those universities that would have owed at least $100 million in tax without the exemption, but would allow alteration or repeal of such exemptions more generally.

At first blush, this seems more than fair. New York University and Columbia University—the two that would be affected—have endowments of $5.9 billion and $13.64 billion, respectively. They have also each enjoyed more than $145 million in property tax savings ...