Federal Considerations on Higher Education FAQ

Media reports and flyers distributed on campus suggest the College will expose student identities in its response to the recent Congressional inquiry we received. This flyer and media reports grossly misrepresent matters.

The College is strictly committed to its legal obligation to protect the privacy of our students, in accordance with laws that include the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). Having consistently sought to follow the spirit and letter of this legal requirement, we certainly intend to do so as we resolve with representatives of the Congressional committee the extent of their inquiry. This means that the College will not expose student identities unless obligations to the law stipulate otherwise—and that is not the case at this time. The College cannot act lawlessly, but the College will take every appropriate step to protect student identities.

On March 27, 2025, the College received a letter jointly signed by the chairs of the U.S. House Committee on Education and Workforce and its Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Development on behalf of their committee and subcommittee members. Because the committee has made the letter public, you can find the letter for your reference. The letter communicates that the committee seeks extensive information related to protests on our campus as of October 7, 2023.

The College will evaluate the committee’s request, discuss the scope of its inquiry with committee staff, and is working legal counsel and other advisors to respond in a manner that upholds Pomona’s mission and values as we meet our legal obligations.

The College is strictly committed to its legal obligation to protect the privacy of our students, in accordance with laws that include the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). In responding to the committee’s request, the College will uphold Pomona’s unwavering commitment to protecting the release of personally identifiable student information consistent with such privacy laws. You can learn more about FERPA and our student records privacy policy on our website.

In responding to this letter, the College has two instructive legal obligations:

1. Under federal law, House committees have the right to request and receive information.
2. In accordance with laws that include the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), the College has the important legal obligation to protect the privacy of our students. We take this responsibility seriously and have consistently sought to follow the spirit and letter of this legal requirement.

Endowments provide essential financial support to colleges and universities, enabling them to offer scholarships, fund research initiatives, and maintain state-of-the-art facilities. By generating a steady income stream, endowments help ensure the institution's long-term financial stability and academic excellence.

At Pomona, the endowment is a permanent, dedicated pool of funds, primarily composed of donations, invested to support the College’s mission. Thanks to the generosity of our extraordinary community of donors, our endowment helps ensure that a Pomona education remains accessible to students of all backgrounds for generations to come.

You can read more about our endowment, its importance to the College’s investments in our educational program and our students, and related matters on the website we have created for this purpose.

The College spends roughly $120,000 per year to provide a Pomona education to each student. Student revenues from tuition and other payments account for about half that figure. The rest comes from the annual endowment payout, fundraising and other sources. The endowment subsidizes every student’s education.

The endowment tax is a federal levy applied to the net investment income of universities with endowments greater than $500,000 per student. Since this tax was established in 2017, Pomona College has paid over $16 million in taxes, roughly equivalent to 184 full scholarships.

In the 2025 budget cycle, Congress continues to discuss a budget bill that may include an increase to the college and university endowment tax.

We are closely following the continuing budget discussions about increasing this tax rate for select nonprofit colleges and universities. Basically, every 1% of endowment tax results in a $2 million reduction in spending on College needs from Pomona’s endowment.

We are partnering with other liberal arts colleges and our national educational associations to convey to federal legislators and their staffs our concerns about the risks to education, access and affordability that would result from increasing the endowment tax.

For more information, visit Pomona’s endowment website.

Pell Grants constitute the largest source of post-secondary education grants in the country, annually helping more than 6.5 million undergraduate students with exceptional financial need pay for college.

Cuts in 2025 to the U.S. Department of Education, which manages the Pell Grant program, have raised concerns that this program could face cuts as well. The Pell Grant program has historically enjoyed strong bipartisan support, and we are hopeful that Congressional budget discussions will not result in reductions to Pell funding.

While Pomona’s generous financial aid program meets an extensive portion of student financial aid needs, the College will continue to convey to leadership on Capitol Hill our strong view of the vital importance of the Pell Grant program to educational opportunity and access.