With College Endowments, How Much Is Too Much?(2/2)
Colleges and their endowments are excused from taxes. Other tax-exempt groups are required to spend at least five percent of their endowments each year. Some people, including Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, think it is reasonable to consider such a requirement for colleges.
The senator praised Harvard and Yale for their plans and said he hopes others will follow. Senator Grassley is the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, which deals with tax policy. Last September, at his urging, the committee questioned experts about this issue.
One was Lynn Munson of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity. She says universities pay out only about four percent of their endowments, yet their investments earn much more than that.
A study found that endowments of more than one billion dollars earned an average return of fifteen percent in two thousand six. The average for all endowments was just under eleven percent.
But some experts say most endowment money has to remain invested so schools are not hurt when markets fall.Also, universities point out that donors often restrict the uses for their donations. Still, Lynn Munson said forty-five percent of endowment money at private schools is unrestricted, and twenty percent at public colleges.
参考译文：
高校及其捐赠基金是免税的。其他的免税团体每年至少要花掉其捐助款额的5%。包括爱荷华州参议员Chuck Grassley在内的一些人认为，对高校考虑这样的要求是合理的。
该议员表扬了哈佛和耶鲁的计划，并指出，他希望其他学校效仿。Grassley议员是负责税收政策的参议院财政委员会的领导。去年九月，在他的推动下，委员会针对这个问题询问了专家的意见。
其中一个是大学学费负担与生产力中心的Lynn Munson。她说，大学仅支出其捐赠基金4%的数量，但其投资收益远远大于这些。
一项研究发现，在2006年10亿美金以上的捐赠基金的平均收益有15%。所有捐赠基金的平均收益仅在11%以下。
但是一些专家称，大部分的捐赠基金得一直用于投资，这样学校在市场衰退时可免于受损。并且，大学指出那些捐赠者通常限定其捐赠的用途。不过，Lynn Munson说私立学校45%捐赠基金和公立学校20%的捐赠基金是不受限制的。
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