One university is trying to give a state legislature a lesson in economics, by saying that tax breaks now will lead to tax revenues later.

Grand Canyon University, an Arizona-based for-profit higher ed provider, is asking the state legislature for tax breaks for some planned expansion. Inside Higer Ed’s Ry Rivard has these details:

A bill sponsored by the chairman of the state’s Senate finance committee would allow Grand Canyon Education Inc. to avoid an estimated $1.5 million in property taxes next year – plus more in years to come.

The publicly traded company is expanding its main campus in Phoenix and working to open a new campus in Mesa by 2015.

C.E.O. Brian Mueller said the tax break would be miniscule compared to the company’s past and ongoing investment in the state. He said that between 2009 and the end of 2013, Grand Canyon has invested about $401 million on classrooms, dorms, athletic facilities and technology. Over the same period, the company made about $267 million in after-tax profit.

While many industries seek tax incentives and exemptions, for-profit college lobbyists tout that they pay taxes and have taken shots at tax-exempt public colleges and private nonprofit colleges. For-profits also argue that they don’t take direct government subsidies, as public colleges do — though for-profits do end up collecting about $30 billion a year in federal financial aid that flows through students.

Mueller said what’s happening in Arizona and at Grand Canyon is unique.

“You’re not going to see this repeated, I don’t believe,” he said. “We’re developing a very special relationship with the city of Phoenix and the state of Arizona as a university and as a corporation.”

Officials of the company argue that even though its tax rate will go down, it will actually be paying more taxes over all because the value of its property is going up after the investments, which are designed to bring thousands more students on campus in coming years.

The university currently has about 60,000 students. Fifty thousand are online but about 8,500 are going to classes in Phoenix.

Grand Canyon is not the only Arizona for-profit to get a tax break.

In 2012, the legislature passed a bill that reduces taxes on the University of Phoenix and other companies that do the lion’s share of their business with out-of-state customers. The university argued it was being double taxed by Arizona on sales on which it was also paying taxes in other states. Because of that change to the tax code, the state expects to lose about $4.4 million per year by 2018.