Why private universities should — like the rest of us — pay property taxes

The Chicago Tribune reports:

If you're a property owner in the Chicago area, then you've likely suffered the sting of skyrocketing property tax bills. In 2016, the Tribune reported, Chicago homeowners' property tax bills increased by an average of 13 percent. This year, property owners are seeing another round of property tax increases.

Yet some of the Chicago area's wealthiest property owners don't pay property taxes.

Why not? Because these wealthy owners are private universities. State law exempts from property taxes property that is owned by universities and used for educational purposes.

Northwestern University owns 240 acres on the Evanston lakefront, plus real estate in Chicago's expensive Streeterville neighborhood. The University of Chicago owns 217 acres in Hyde Park. These campuses are exempt from the property tax. So are DePaul University, Loyola University Chicago and other private university campuses across the state.


And it is not just the buildings with classrooms that are exempt. The "educational purposes" exemption also covers Ryan Field and Welsh-Ryan Arena — the Northwestern football and basketball facilities.

The property tax exemption is so generous that it even covers real estate owned by the Big Ten Conference. Yet the Big Ten is not a university. It is not a school of any kind. It's an organization formed by universities that uses its property to administer intercollegiate sports programs.

Just a reminder the next time greedy tenured Marxists talk about the 1%.