Dear Members of the UCSF Community:

Tax reform is moving quickly through Congress. The bills being debated by both the House of Representatives and the Senate this week may have a significantly adverse impact on UCSF, the University of California (UC), and colleges and universities nationwide.

If you would like to voice your concern about tax reform, please consider calling your elected officials. Democrats and Republicans alike need to hear from their constituents that the proposed legislation will increase the costs of education, research, as well as health care for all Americans.

Specifically, the policies under consideration would make higher education more expensive and less accessible for students, which runs counter to UCSF’s strong commitment to a diverse and inclusive student body. These policies would negatively affect the university’s ability to support our tripartite mission to educate, provide quality patient care, and conduct cutting-edge research.

To provide a better idea of what is at stake this week, the House of Representatives is considering the following actions:

• Ending tax-free tuition reimbursement;
• Repealing the student loan interest deduction;
• Repealing the Lifetime Learning tax credit;
• Increasing the standard deduction and repealing the estate tax, which will reduce the incentive for charitable giving to institutions like UCSF; and
• Repealing tax-exempt bond financing options, which UCSF relies on to make capital investments in buildings and facilities on campus.

While the Senate bill does not include provisions to repeal or...