<p>[Providence</a> mayor wants to tax college students](<a href=“http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090513/ap_on_re_us/us_taxing_college_students]Providence”>http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090513/ap_on_re_us/us_taxing_college_students)</p>
<p>As a resident of a somewhat similar college town (and parent of a future RISD student), it’ll be interesting to see how this plays out…</p>
<p>Maybe a city that would appreciate having a good college might put in a bid for Brown? Would Brown be Brown if it were to relocate to Youngstown, Ohio or Gary, Indiana? How about Flint, Michigan? Lots of spare land there reverting back to forest.</p>
<p>Brown is the #2 largest employer in Providence. I’m sure that Providence already gets plenty of taxes from employees at Brown, even if not all of them live in the city. </p>
<p>But seriously, this guy should be yelled at. College students are already quite overburdened with debt and work … the city shouldn’t be picking pennies out of their pockets and add to stress just to raise a little bit more revenue. You can find better sources of revenue elsewhere, I’m sure.</p>
<p>That’s just my 0.02 (and don’t take that away from me too, Mr. David Cicilline!)</p>
<p>Cicilline is just saying something that will be popular amongst some residents but will never happen and he knows it.</p>
<p>Brown basically is the Providence tax base, and even when we buy new property, we pay the city a TON of money (typically something like 100 years of taxes worth) because the land will never be taxable again.</p>
<p>Below is a link to a post that sums up Mayor Cicilline’s student tax proposal</p>
<p>[brainstorming</a> our economy](<a href=“http://www.fix-the-economy.com/yetanotherforum/default.aspx?g=posts&m=5#5]brainstorming”>http://www.fix-the-economy.com/yetanotherforum/default.aspx?g=posts&m=5#5)</p>
<p>It seems like the mayor is reneging now on his historic “20-Year” agreement with the major private colleges regarding in-lieu payments – and we’re only in Year 6!</p>
<p>[RISD</a> : Rhode Island School of Design : CONTACT EXTERNAL RELATIONS](<a href=“http://www.risd.edu/school_press_24.htm]RISD”>http://www.risd.edu/school_press_24.htm)</p>
<p>So what happened to the “spirit of cooperation” between the City and the schools?</p>
<p>I especially like the last paragraph: “In announcing the agreement, Mayor Cicilline said he would not file any legislation in the General Assembly aimed at imposing service fees or mandating payments by the colleges and universities in Providence.”</p>
<p>Another politician failing to keep his promises? Why am I not surprised?</p>
<p>Governor Carcieri said that the plan was “ill-advised” and there seems to be a lot of unrest from other urban state assemblymen who are concerned that community hospitals and schools in their own neighborhoods would be put at major risk if this policy became the norm around the state. I don’t think he’s going to get support for this, even if Providence has had hot-and-cold relationships with the universities and colleges in the past. The amount of money we’re paying Providence over 20 years for the Jewelry District purchases we’ve made recently covered something like 100 years in property tax, so I feel as though we’ve been quite generous with the state and city. Of course, frankly, we’re a huge part of the economy (not to mention Brown alone is the number 2 employer in the city) and I think it would be a bad idea to push on us even more.</p>
<p>What Cicilline should focus on is how to create jobs for the incoming students at the new Providence Career and Technical high school and for Brown students who are graduating-- there’s a huge “brain drain” and loss of human capital when Brown students flea to Boston or New York City after graduating because RI hasn’t supplied them with jobs to entice us to stay.</p>
<p>I realized I’m repeating myself and others but I’m pretty frustrated with how stupid this idea is, even if I don’t think it’ll ever happen.</p>