Donors receive tax breaks for giving to nonprofits including colleges. Under Reed’s plan, which is still being developed, individuals may be able to deduct 150 percent of scholarship donations that support working-class students while unrestricted gifts would be deductible at 125 percent. Restricted gifts of more than $5,000 wouldn’t be deductible.

“Between what has been said on the campaign trail and what we have seen in Congress in recent months and over the last two years, we know this is an issue that’s foremost on some members’ minds,” said Josh Farrelman, head of government relations at the University of Rochester, which has a $1.9 billion fund and some hospital affiliates in Reed’s district. “We are trying to do our jobs in terms of educating what these issues are and addressing some of their concerns.”

Schools said that some endowment money is designated by donors for specific purposes and can’t be freely spent. Endowments also invest for the long-term and help fund university operations for current and future generations of students, educators said.

Lobbying is another avenue to explain that endowments aren’t simply savings accounts, said Robert Durkee, vice president at Princeton, the fifth-wealthiest college with a $22.2 billion fund.

“It gives us a chance to say that half of our operating budget is being funded out of earnings from the endowment,” Durkee said. “We’re using the endowment every year.”

Taking Meetings

Cornell, located in the Ithaca, New York, district represented by Reed, said school officials met with legislative representatives, according to disclosure forms.

“We note that the congressman’s goals align with ours,” Joel Malina, Cornell’s vice president of university relations, said in a statement. “We just disagree on the most effective way of achieving those goals.”

Reed has been concerned about rising sticker prices. As the student debt crisis worsens, “it is only fair that we require more transparency to determine whether these schools, which spend millions of dollars lobbying the federal government, are doing so on behalf of their students’ best interest or that of their endowments and Wall Street hedge fund managers,” Reed said in a statement on Monday.

Previous Effort