Dartmouth spent 25 times more on federal lobbying in the first six months of 2025 than in the first six months of 2024.
According to public disclosures, federal lobbying spending rose from less than $10,000 in fiscal quarters one and two of 2024 to $265,400 this year — a more than 2,500% increase.
Cornell University, Harvard University, Princeton University and Yale University have also increased funding for lobbying efforts — with Cornell spending $444,000 in the second quarter of 2025, according to public records.
The College has contracted with McAllister & Quinn since January 2022, a firm whose client list also includes University of California Irvine and the University of Houston, according to its website. It has also employed Lewis-Burke Associates since October 2024, a firm that also represents the California Institute of Technology and Tufts University. The firms have been paid $40,000 and $60,000, respectively, each quarter since their contracts began, according to public filings.
There is no internal lobbying team at the College, according to senior vice president for communications and government relations Justin Anderson. The “formalized” government relations “entity” was initiated by College President Sian Leah Beilock, he said. Anderson said his role as senior vice president for communications was amended in December to include government relations ahead of the inauguration of President Donald Trump.
In this capacity, Anderson said he works with director of federal relations Emily Burlij, Lewis-Burke Associates, peer institutions and other professional organizations like the American Association of Universities. The groups target members of Congress who sponsor legislation that “will have a direct impact on [the College],” he said.
According to Anderson, the lobbying process includes communication with Burlij — the former director of federal relations at Boston University before coming to Dartmouth — who is an “expert” in legislative processes. She advises the College on what legislation is on the horizon and which members of Congress are involved, hoping that she can then “engage” with these officials on behalf of the College “in a way that we hope will pay benefits for Dartmouth and higher education institutions.”
He added that “changes” in the amount of money allocated to lobbying are “certain” with every election year, as colleges and universities are “adjusting” to the new administration’s priorities.
“Even before election day [in 2024], regardless of who won, we knew that there was an endowment tax that was initiated in 2017 and it was coming to an end in 2024,” Anderson said. “We wanted to make sure that as an institution, Dartmouth, and as a sector, higher ed, that we had some influence in trying to keep that tax at a low rate.”
The endowment tax — set in 2017 at 1.4% for universities with an endowment worth $500,000 per student and at least 500 full-time students — has changed to a bracketed system under the One Big Beautiful Bill. The endowments of Harvard, Princeton and Yale qualify them to pay an eight percent tax on endowment returns annually beginning in 2026, according to reporting by the Columbia Spectator. Under this bill, the College will face a four percent tax on endowment returns.
The increases in lobbying funds filed in the second quarter of this year come after the Trump administration cancelled and froze millions of dollars in federal funding to universities in the spring. In May, the administration also targeted federal funding grants from the National Institute of Health and the National Endowment for the Humanities, among others — some of which impacted research being conducted at the College.
“These past six months have been an exceedingly busy time when it comes to federal action around issues related to higher education,” Anderson said. “I don’t see the interest of the federal government in higher education waning, so I suspect that [lobbying] is an activity we’re going to continue to do pretty robustly, as efficiently and effectively as we can.”
Tierney Flavin ’28 is a news reporter. She is from Kansas City, Mo. and plans to major in Government and Sociology.
