President Spencer op-ed: Tax bills ‘constrict access to education’

In a Dec. 7 op-ed published in the Portland Press Herald, President Clayton Spencer argues that the recently passed tax reform bills in Congress “will constrict access to education at a time when it has never been more vital to individual advancement or national prosperity.”

Spencer says that Congress’ current efforts at tax reform, which eliminate a range of benefits for college students, recent graduates, and their families, “stand in sharp contrast to the expansive vision of the GI Bill” following World War II.

The GI Bill, along with federal investment in university research, fueled “an influx of talent and ambition into the nation’s colleges and universities,” she says, one that created the “greatest engine of innovation in the world, expanded the pool of highly skilled labor and ushered in an unprecedented period of U.S. economic growth.”

The House and Senate will try to reconcile their bills in conference in the coming weeks.