Under New York State law, private universities benefit from charitable status, so they don’t pay property taxes like other private landholders. This exemption costs New York City over $650 million in revenue each year. But two universities receive the biggest write-offs: Columbia and NYU. Together, they account for almost half of the total cost of real property tax exemptions given to private universities in NYC, totaling $321 million.

That’s why we’ve introduced legislation to repeal the real property tax exemption given to private universities in New York whose annual property taxes cost $100 million or more. These universities accumulate properties across the city and rob the State’s tax base of critical revenue. In fact, Columbia is the largest private landowner in NYC, and the value of both NYU and Columbia’s total property holdings has more than tripled since the 1990s. Despite astronomical combined endowments of over $20 billion, these institutions aim to get richer through land grabs, and it works.

We aren’t just going to repeal these real property tax exemptions for the worst actors, we’re going to send the resulting revenue to CUNY – which propels  thousands of low income New Yorkers into the middle class yet has suffered from decades of austerity budgets. 

Join us in building a movement of New Yorkers to call for an end to this exemption and to fund CUNY.  You can read more about the bill here – and get involved by writing to your legislator and joining the campaign here.