Do chaos-enabling Columbia and NYU deserve to be off the hook for property taxes?
NY Post
As police in riot gear clash with anti-Israel student protesters who are causing mayhem and destroying property on campuses across the city, a question arises: Do Columbia and NYU deserve to be exempt from property taxes?
The two universities saved a combined $327 million last year alone, thanks to a centuries-old law that exempts universities and other nonprofits from paying property taxes.
But as they scoop up ever more real estate in the city (Columbia is New York City’s largest private landowner, and NYU’s not far behind), while campus leaders let their students run wild, the case for continuing to let them off the hook is looking pretty thin.
In December, Assembly lawmakers introduced a bill to axe the exemption for universities that save more than $100 million a year (meaning only Columbia and NYU would get hit) and use the money to fund the City University of New York.
Bill sponsor Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani said: “This bill seeks to address universities that have so blatantly gone beyond primarily operating as institutions of higher education and are instead acting as landlords and developers.”
As a lefty, Mamdani’s motive may be more “loving taxes” than anything else, but he has a point: Columbia and NYU have been operating as more than “institutions of higher education” for decades.
