Tuesday, June 22, 2004

This week’s Chronicle of Higher Education asks ten experts for their views on the most pressing legal issues facing higher education in the next five years. Two of the experts flagged tax issues:

• Tax Prof David Williams II (VP & General Counsel at Vanderbilt): As colleges search for new revenue streams, they will become more entrepreneurial. That will require legal analysis and attention to both contractual and transactional issues in areas like real estate, zoning, tax, and intellectual property. Colleges will have to deal with issues concerning unrelated business income, tax-exempt status, and the legal aspects of taking ideas, inventions, and products to the public market.

• Beverly Ledbetter (VP & General Counsel at Brown): As our institutions have grown intellectually, we have become more complex in both our structure and operations. The distinction between the academic world and the corporate sector is dissolving. As regulators try to sort out which hat we are wearing, tax consequences will surely follow. Will “hybrid” or “dual status” colleges become common?