McPherson College, in the middle of Kansas wheat country, is a small school that accepts the vast majority of its applicants, many from surrounding towns. It is best known for its degree in classic car restoration.

The college might still end up a potential target in a Republican plan aimed primarily at the Ivy League, which would impose billions in taxes on the investment returns of several dozen private colleges and universities.

The goal of the proposal, laid out in a report last week from Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee, is to hold accountable “woke, elite universities that operate more like major corporations.” McPherson could be on the list because it has an endowment of $1.6 billion, thanks to an anonymous donation a few years ago.

An analysis by The New York Times shows that at least 58 schools would potentially be subject to the tax, based on the size of their endowments and enrollments. The list includes highly selective and wealthy institutions like Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but also smaller schools like Berry College in Georgia and DePauw University in Indiana.

The tax idea has been discussed by Republicans since at least President Trump’s first term, when a 1.4 percent tax was imposed on some endowments. Momentum to broaden it grew in 2023, when JD Vance, then a senator from Ohio, proposed a 35 percent tax on endowments of $10 billion and larger.

Now, as President Trump has made challenging the nation’s wealthiest colleges a centerpiece of his second-term agenda, the endowment tax could become a potent weapon. During Mr. Trump’s second presidential run, his campaign promised to collect billions “by taxing the large endowments of private universities plagued by antisemitism.”