During a House Education and the Workforce Committee hearing prior to the congressional recess, Rep. Lucy McBath (D-GA) slammed a proposal to tax scholarship opportunities for student-athletes.
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00:00Ms. McBath, I'm sorry. Ms. McBath, I recognize you for five minutes for questioning.
00:06Thank you, Chair and Ranking Member DeSaunier for hosting this hearing, and to our witnesses
00:12that are here with us this morning, thank you so much for taking the time to testify.
00:17College athletics have such an important place in our education system and American society.
00:23They represent more than just a sports team. They carry the legacy of a town, an institution,
00:31and a past player's dreams and accomplishments. These things are incredibly meaningful,
00:37and we need to be sure that nothing that we do here in Congress will further complicate things
00:43for folks back home or put these opportunities further out of reach for students and their
00:49families. Student athletes must be treated with the dignity and the respect that they deserve.
00:55They must be fairly compensated for their efforts while ensuring that schools, both large and both
01:01small, can continue to provide the high-quality education and athletic opportunities for our
01:07students. Athletic scholarships have and continue to play a very important role in making sure that
01:14every student who wants to better themselves through a higher education has an opportunity to do so
01:20without going into a lifetime of debt, regardless of how much money their parents make or whether
01:26anyone in their family has ever been to college before. They are directly responsible for helping
01:33people lift themselves up from lower income levels and into a better quality of life, sometimes breaking
01:41generational cycles of poverty. While most student athletes may not go on to play professional sports,
01:48all of them will be more likely able to finish their degree and have the skills that are necessary to
01:54provide a decent life for themselves after they graduate. They are true engines of social mobility, and it would be
02:04devastating to students, families, and athletic programs if athletes had to worry about being taxed on those very
02:13scholarships. But that exact proposal is unfortunately being floated by our House Republicans.
02:23This memo, circulated by the majority, which I would like to submit digitally for the record, outlines the
02:31potential ways that Republicans want to raise revenue this Congress. And you can see that this proposal to make
02:40all scholarships income taxable. This is right here written out on page 11. This proposal would impose a new tax on
02:50students and families and force students and athletic recruits with the lowest incomes to reconsider whether or not
02:57they can afford to accept a scholarship because of the new tax burden that would come with it.
03:03Student athletes should be focused on success on the field and in the classroom, not on whether they will
03:09have to pay a new tax on the scholarships that they've earned. Ms. McWilliams Parker, can you talk about the negative
03:18impact that taxing scholarship opportunities would have on student athletes if this proposal,
03:26by my House Republican colleagues to tax all scholarships were to become law?
03:31Ms. Thank you Ms. McBeth for that question. I was a walk-on student-athlete at Hampton University.
03:40My parents had to pay for me to go to college and I depended on the package to be a student-athlete
03:46that year. And I earned a scholarship thereafter. And I think about that question, if you had to tax,
03:54if we had to tax that scholarship, that is an extra burden on my family. That one that they couldn't
03:59afford. They couldn't afford for me to go to Hampton. So the fact of the matter of being able to get a
04:03scholarship and able to get the resources that I had on campus was extremely important. We're a smaller
04:10institutions. We're division two. All of our student-athlete and scholarship packages in our division.
04:15So when you talk about exposure and what we're seeing for football and basketball,
04:20that is not the reality of our students and our first-generational students at our institutions.
04:26There's a need. They need the support. They need the Pell Grants. They need the financial aid.
04:32That is part of their scholarship package at our division two schools. And in division one,
04:37I would imagine that they depend on some of that scholarship money as well. So taxing it is not helping us
04:43at all. Thank you for that. I, too, come from Virginia State University. I graduated there. I'm
04:50not going to say when. But that is also a division two school as well. And so I've spoken with our
04:57president there several times. And I understand unequivocally how devastating it would be if we
05:02were to tax these scholarships. Also in the state of Georgia, too, we have scholarships that are being
05:09taxed as well. So thank you for your testimony. The gentlelady yields back.