Donald Trump said too many colleges use the money they have to pay for administrators, equity fund managers and to put donors' names on buildings. | Getty Trump threatens to take tax breaks away from wealthy universities

Colleges and universities that don't spend their endowments to directly benefit students should lose the tax breaks on those endowments, Donald Trump said Thursday night.

Echoing House Republicans who have questioned why wealthy universities with fat endowments keep raising tuition prices, Trump said during a rally in Chester Township, Pa., that it's time for colleges to spend their endowments to help students — rather than on "other things that don’t matter.”


Trump said too many colleges use the money they have to pay for administrators, equity fund managers and to put donors' names on buildings.

"What a lot of people don’t know is that universities get massive tax breaks for their massive endowments," Trump said. "These huge, multi-billion-dollar endowments are tax-free, but too many of these universities don’t use the money to help with the tuition and student debt.”

Trump said he would work with Congress to push reforms to help students and families, so that colleges make "good faith" efforts to curtail student debt. The GOP presidential nominee said paying for college is one of the top issues he hears about from voters.

Going to college, Trump said, “should be easier to access, pay for and finish, and a lot of people want to do that.”

"We have to deal with these universities," Trump told the crowd. "We have to break the cycle."

