Political Quotes

“of the many Federal regulations with which colleges and universities are required to comply, one of the most onerous is that associated with the HOPE scholarship and lifetime learning tax credit. Originally enacted as part of the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997, the tax credits were intended to give parents back more of their hard-earned money, up to $1,500 for the first 2 years of college, so that they could better afford to send their children to school. While we were successful in providing this tax relief for students and families, we discovered an unintended consequence: an unfunded mandate burdening colleges, trade schools, community colleges, and universities in the form of a reporting requirement administered by the IRS. I became aware of this regulatory issue during the fall of 1997. I was discussing several concerns with Dr. La Tourette, president of Northern Illinois University. While talking about the merits of the HOPE scholarship, he dropped the bombshell on me and informed us of the new Federal requirements forcing all 6,000 institutions of higher education in this country to collect unprecedented information on their students and disseminate that information to the IRS. I knew compliance with the reporting requirement would be expansive and expensive and would ultimately be borne by the very families that they were trying to help with the HOPE scholarship program. Both large and small institutions have been hit hard by the reporting requirement.”