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PartialEducation & Student Debt

Under the plan I'm announcing today, we will take the billions and billions of dollars that we will collect by taxing, fining and suing excessively large private university endowments and we will then use that money to endow a new institution called the American Academy. Its mission will be to make a truly world class education available to every American free of charge and do it without adding a single dime to the federal debt.

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PartialFact-checker reviewConfidence: 80%

The taxing element was enacted: the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (Public Law 119-21, signed July 4, 2025) replaced the flat 1.4% excise tax on large private university endowments with tiered rates of 1.4%, 4%, and 8%, effective for tax years beginning after December 31, 2025. However, the statute does not earmark any of that revenue for a new institution, and as of July 2, 2026, no federal action has established, proposed, or funded the promised 'American Academy' offering free education. The revenue-collection half of the promise materially advanced; the core deliverable, the Academy itself, has not.

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