NEA: Higher Education Advocate OnLine - From Capital to Campus

From Capital to Campus. . .

. . . As the Advocate goes to press, the President and Congressional leaders have reached agreement on a budget.

Final details of the tax-plan and other news of Congressional action will be available through the E-mail NEA Higher Education Alert. You can subscribe to this new service by sending this message: subscribe hecongress to lyris@list.nea.org.

Many details of the budget agreement are still unclear, but the deal does provide postsecondary tuition tax credits in line with what the President originally proposed.

Reportedly, the plan will not tax the tuition waivers that many institutions give to grad assistants and children of faculty and staff--and extends for three years the employer tuition tax deduction, but for undergraduates only.

The plan also includes a tax deduction for student loan interest.

. . . The National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities would all get significant increases in funding bills passed by Senate authorizing committees.

The next step is for appropriations committees to provide the money. After that, both houses of Congress will vote on the increases as part of larger spending bills.

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