On Wednesday, May 21st at 10:00 a.m. in 430 Dirksen Senate Office Building, the Seante Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will hold a hearing on the state of higher education in America.
Month: May 2025
GOP Tax Package Advances Out of Committee
Early Wednesday morning, after more than 17 hours of debate, the House Ways and Means Committee voted to advance out of committee the legislative package containing a slew of President Trump’s top tax priorities. The panel advanced the legislation in a 26-19 party-line vote after rejecting numerous Democratic-led amendments.
The tax bill now heads to the House Budget Committee, which is tasked with combining all the portions of the Trump agenda bill into one package in advance of its consideration in the entire chamber.
The 389-page package makes the income tax rates from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 permanent and implements some of the president’s campaign promises, including no tax on tips or overtime through 2028 and a temporary increase of the child tax credit.
This bill also includes the Republican proposal to increase the endowment tax on some universities. Under the 2017 law, private universities with endowments of over $500,000 per student were subject to a 1.4% tax. The current GOP package creates a tiered excise tax system that would significantly increase taxes on some universities:
- 1.4% tax for schools with endowments between $500,000 and $750,000 per student.
- 7% tax for schools with endowments between $750,000 and $1.25 million per student.
- 14% tax for schools with endowments between $1.25 million and $2 million per student.
- 21% tax for schools with endowments above $2 million per student.
The bill also narrows the definition of students counted for tax calculations. International students on temporary visas and undocumented students will be excluded from the count, increasing the tax burden on institutions with large international student populations.
Crucially, the endowment tax would still only apply to private universities, although some religiously affiliated institutions will be exempt.
While voting the package out of committee is a significant step, there remains a strenuous process ahead of GOP leadership as they seek passage of the reconciliation legislation. The Ways and Means portion must be packaged together into one “big, beautiful bill” by the House Budget Committee before being voted on by the entire House, which will be difficult given concerns from different GOP factions and the razor-thin margin in the House. If the bill does manage to pass, it will be subject to potentially significant changes in the Senate, where it will also face staunch Democratic opposition.
Helpful links:
HHS Budget Hearing
The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies will meet in open session at 10:00 AM on Tuesday, May 20, 2025, in Room 124 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.
The Subcommittee will hold a hearing titled: A Review of the President’s Fiscal Year 2026 Budget Request for the Department of Health and Human Services. Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will be the witness. Live video webcast of the hearing can be found here: www.appropriations.senate.gov.
NSF Restructuring
The National Science Foundation is next agency in line for a massive shake-up under the Trump Administration. Staff were reportedly informed last week that the agency’s 37 divisions—across all eight NSF directorates—are being abolished and the number of programs within those divisions will be drastically reduced. The current directors and deputy directors will lose their titles and might be reassigned to other positions at the agency or elsewhere in the federal government.
The NSF’s new structure will retain the existing directorates but replace divisions with “clusters” that fund research in the president’s five priority areas: artificial intelligence, quantum information science, biotechnology, nuclear energy, and translational science.
The consolidation appears to be driven in part by President Donald Trump’s proposal to cut the agency’s $4 billion budget by 55% for the 2026 fiscal year that begins on October 1. Furthermore, the NSF is expected to send termination notices to an unspecified number of its 1700-member staff.
In addition to staff layoffs, the NSF will significantly reduce the number of scientists it employs through the Intergovernmental Personnel Act. Under this program, scientists on leave from their academic positions work with the NSF to help the agency choose the best research to fund. NSF currently hosts 368 scientists but plans to slash this number to 70 by June 9.
The move comes after the recent announcement that the NSF would begin capping reimbursement rates for indirect research costs at 15%, mirroring the funding cuts at the NIH and the Department of Energy, both of which have been blocked in court. A number of universities and associations have filed a suit to block this move as well.
Helpful Links:
NSF slashes number of ‘rotators’ and well-paid managers as part of restructuring | Science | AAAS
Exclusive: NSF faces radical shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions | Science | AAAS