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New from CommonWealth Beacon GREEN LIGHT: Chelsea has been named the 2025 All-America city for sustainability projects, reflecting work born from years of environmental injustice, Hallie Claflin reports. The densely populated city of 40,000 residents just north of Boston has long had to contend with a litany of environmental hazards – and the public health problems they bring.

Harvard, MIT face steep tax hike under Trump bill July 17, 2025 By Michael Jonas While the Trump administration continues its high-profile war against Harvard University – cutting hundreds of millions of dollars in federal research funding, and threatening to challenge its accreditation and enrollment of international students – the administration quietly notched another win in its broader attack on higher education by including a steep increase in the tax on investment gains for wealthy universities in the massive tax and spending bill the president signed earlier this month.   Harvard will be the hardest hit of any university, with the new endowment tax costing the school $266 million per year, according to an estimate by Peter Levine, a Wellesley College economics professor who has tracked the issue. MIT is the only other Massachusetts university that will be hit by the new tax, with its annual tax increasing by an estimated $129 million.

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Universities, like all nonprofit organizations, have long enjoyed tax-exempt status. A tax on university endowment gains was first introduced in 2017 as part of the tax cut bill Trump championed during his first term. That legislation imposed a 1.4 percent tax on endowment gains of the wealthiest US universities – those that enrolled at least 500 full-time students and had an endowment greater than $500,000 per student.    But that only whetted the appetite of congressional Republicans, who have been eager to boost the tax. That became possible with Trump’s return to the White House, backed by Republican control of both chambers of Congress.  Republicans say it’s only fair that schools with enormous endowments are taxed on their investment gains. Those arguments have come, however, with more than a hint of the added animus toward higher ed shown by Trump, who has disparaged universities as the province of the “radical left,” or Vice President JD Vance, whose thinking was hardly subtle in a speech delivered four years ago to a national conservative group that was titled “The universities are the enemy.” READ MORE

More Context Mass. ‘eds and meds’ sector in the cross hairs (February 2025)  How Harvard could become a higher ed hero (March 2022)

More from CommonWealth Beacon A HEATED DEBATE: Massachusetts lawmakers on Monday heard heated testimony on a bill that would institute a statewide ban on nicotine sales to anyone born after 2006 – a policy that 17 communities across the state have already adopted. Bhaamati Borkhetaria has the story.  OPINION: Parents Defending Education is not about parents, or education. It is an obedient servant of right-wing forces out to dumb down American education from K-12 through graduate school, writes retired University of Massachusetts Boston professor and author Maurice Cunningham. The right’s lever to achieve its goal is to promote racial division and hatred against LGBTQ+ families.

The Codcast: Reconsidering school receivership CommonWealth Beacon executive editor Michael Jonas joins reporter Jennifer Smith to trace the last decade in state takeovers of local school districts. The results, as Jonas has reported, are a far cry from a silver bullet to fix struggling schools. LISTEN NOW

What We're Reading EDUCATION: Parents in Worcester have raised concerns about the use of AI tools in schools, in part because the district used the Amira Learning digital reading app this past spring, which recorded the voices of young learners. (The Worcester Telegram – paywall)  PUBLIC SAFETY: After nine people died and 30 others were injured at an assisted living facility in Fall River, Mayor Paul Coogan announced the city will hire up to 20 more firefighters and offer more overtime to increase the number of crew members working each shift. (WBUR)  POLITICS: The US Senate voted 51 to 48 to approve a $9 billion rescission package aimed at clawing back money already allocated for public radio and television, including cuts to foreign food and health programs. (GBH News)  ARTS: A pilot program, jointly administered by the state Travel and Tourism and Business Development offices, will offer up to $7 million in funding for live-stage musical theater, dance or theatrical productions in the state. (The Eagle-Tribune – paywall)  IMMIGRATION: Attorneys representing Somerville and Chelsea will appear in US District Court in Boston on Thursday to argue that the cities’ funding streams should be preserved while they contest the Trump administration’s attempt to withhold federal money over their local immigration policies. (MassLive)  FA

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