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Jacques -- I have had back and forth arguments with one of my colleagues about this issue for years as it relates to GWU and its "reproduction" of Foggy Bottom. I agree with her that GWU's expansion has come mostly at the cost of eradicating a neighborhood. But she argues the U has little ec. benefit for the city, and that's where I disagree, although we need a good independent ec. impact study of the Universities to really get at this point. (I've written about this in the past.)

Dizzy -- wrt my point that university holdings off campus should be considered within the context of a campus plan, see http://dcmud.blogspot.com/2011/11/gw-plans-demolition-of-last-of.html

WRT Councilmember Ambrose's point about PILOTs and capitation taxes, I don't know how I feel about it. Definitely universities should pay for emergency and infrastructure costs associated with their presence.

I do think we need to be sure that student purchases are taxed, e.g., my Foggy Bottom colleague avers that the financial card system (by Blackboard) that GWU students use exempts students from paying sales taxes even on off-campus transactions in places like CVS when using the card (I've never followed up on this).

I do think university presence can be leveraged better. E.g., why not work with CUA to develop that research park on the land that they got from AFRH? The engineering programs at GU, GWU, HU, and CUA ought to generate more business development than they do, although some of the businesses created end up in the suburbs.

And for some years, I've thought that rather than focus on creating and improving UDC, maybe the city should just throw in the towel and do something more along the lines of how the State University of New York system pays for some colleges at some of the private universities (e.g., the Ag School at Cornell, or the forestry and environment college sort of associated with Syracuse U) to be "state schools" with state level tuition.

E.g., maybe GWU's arts and sciences college could be DC's liberal arts college, and DC residents (graduating from high school in DC, or at a private school in the region, but with DC residence) could go there. CUA's engineering school could be the state (city) engineering college, Etc. (OTOH, that would require a large increase in size which Foggy Bottom people wouldn't like...)

And the city higher ed. function could focus on community college education. Of course, for years I've also argued that DC should have negotiated with Montgomery County and/or PG County to create a joint community college system as well.

by Richard Layman on Nov 19, 2011 11:11 am • link • report