Columbia—both the students and the institution—may reap direct financial benefits from the federal stimulus legislation now in the final stages of congressional debate. break The Senate voted on Monday to close debate over the $838 billion stimulus bill. If the final draft passes what is expected to be a Senate vote, it will have to be reconciled with the House of Representatives' version before hitting the president's desk. New York Senator Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) has championed an amendment that would provide a $2,500 per student tax credit to families who pay college tuition, and the bill may also lead to funding for the University's campus expansion in Manhattanville. Schumer's plan, which was added in January to both House and Senate drafts of the stimulus package, would allow families to claim a tax credit for each of up to three children currently enrolled in college. According to a press release from Schumer's office, the credit would remain in effect for two years, starting in 2009, and would constitute an "overall benefit for tuition-paying families that is at least two-and-a-half times greater than the current tax deduction available under law." "This is a major breakthrough for a proposal that will save middle-class families thousands of dollars," Schumer said in a January press release. The House of Representatives passed its own $819 billion version of stimulus package—including Schumer's proposed tax credit—on Jan. 29, although not a single Republican representative voted for it. Meanwhile, debate raged on in the Senate over the total sum of the proposed recovery package, and billions of dollars in aid were eventually cut from the Senate's version of the plan in order to reach a consensus. For Monday's vote to close debate on the bill, Senate Democrats won the support of only three Republicans, barely garnering them the 60 required votes. At Friday's University Senate meeting, University president Lee Bollinger explained that Columbia hopes to see funding for its campus expansion in the federal stimulus bill. "We are making a case that part of the stimulus package would be well-spent on Manhattanville," Bollinger said. Professor Samuel Silverstein, a University senator and biophysics professor from the Columbia University Medical Center, agreed. "There is about to be an enormous bolus of funds for infrastructure by the federal government," he said, asking Bollinger whether Columbia might have a project that is "quote, shovel ready ... so that perhaps rather than this being a deficit it actually turned out to be one of the biggest bonuses we have ever gotten?" Because part of the Manhattanville project involves infrastructure investment, it can be presented as a prime candidate for inclusion in the federal stimulus. "Even I could make an argument that the Bathtub is part of the infrastructure of northern Manhattan," Silverstein said. Bollinger agreed but was less enthusiastic as he explained that there are many similar projects that have probably been proposed in the same vein. "We're not the only ones that dawned on them [Congress]," he noted. "Nothing in Manhattanville or anywhere else is going to go forward unless we have the money in hand to build it," University provost Alan Brinkley said at a Student Affairs Caucus meeting on Friday. Columbia could potentially satisfy a significant portion of the project's funding requirements through public funds if the project were included in the stimulus package legislation.