A bill under consideration in the Senate would require universities to spend five percent of their endowments annually, a level Georgetown already meets. While most non-profit organizations are already required to spend 5 percent of their endowments, universities are from this requirement. The bill, proposed by Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) intends to make college more affordable for students. However, some universities are concerned with the mandatory spending. While Georgetown’s endowment ranks 76th in the country, the university currently spends an above-average amount of its endowment each year. According to Cathy Yoon, an executive assistant in the university’s Investment Office, Georgetown spent 5.27 percent of its endowment in the 2007 fiscal year and currently is budgeting to spend approximately 6 percent of its endowment this year. The average across the country is around four percent, Grassley wrote in a column run in Iowan newspapers. Scott Fleming, assistant to the university president for federal relations, said that the bill was not carefully put together and does not take into account university investments. “Because endowments are invested in stocks and bonds, which fluctuate pretty regularly, in order for such a law to be effective and fair to universities, it should take into account the average percentage of the endowment spent over a number of years so that universities are not penalized by being made to spend more than they can afford to due to a bad year,” he said. According to Fleming, a large amount of the donations that are made to university endowments are earmarked for certain purposes designated by the donor. He said it is unclear whether the five percent of the university endowment that would be required to be spent applies to everything, including these earmarked funds. If earmarked funds are included, it would not do much toward making tuition more affordable than it currently is, he said. On Oct. 29, Georgetown University received an award for 2007 Large Endowment of the Year at the Non-Profit Awards for Excellence, due to a 24 percent increase in the endowment in the 2007 fiscal year. In the 2007 fiscal year, Georgetown had returns better than those of Harvard and Stanford Universities and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, according to Larry Kochard, Georgetown’s chief investment officer. University spokesperson Julie Bataille said that decisions won’t be made until the proposed law moves further along in the process. “There is a significant amount of process yet to occur before anything related to this becomes law,” she said. “As a result, Georgetown has not yet planned for these kinds of specific scenarios. When and if something became law we would, of course, comply with that and plan accordingly.”