Washington — In recent weeks, all sorts of rumors have been flying around about Congressional proposals that would penalize college endowments that hoard their assets.

The latest comes from Rep. Peter F. Welch, a Democrat of Vermont, who today proposed restricting IRA rollover contributions to colleges that don’t use their endowments to help low- and middle-income students pay for college.

In a letter to the House Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Welch said wealthy colleges were among the biggest beneficiaries of those IRA distributions and should not be eligible to receive them unless they started using their endowments “specifically for containing college costs” for needy students. He urged the Ways and Means Committee to modify the Internal Revenue code as part of its drafting of a tax bill under consideration.

Mr. Welch has previously proposed requiring colleges to spend at least 5 percent of their endowments every year, and to report annually on how much of their endowments had been spent. The latter proposal is part of the House’s legislation to reauthorize the Higher Education Act. —Brad Wolverton