Flighty wrote:akiss20 wrote:There is quite a bit of outrage amongst us grad students because, as written, it eliminates the tuition waiver exemption. As a grad student, I currently get paid about $38K/yr on a stipend. That $38K/yr is taxable income and is what I use to live. The yearly tuition at my university is $66k/yr, but that tuition is paid by my research fellowship, and is also tax exempt. That money never goes into any of my accounts, it simply gets transferred from one account in my university (the research fund that funs me) to another. Under the current version of the tax bill, all $66k of that would be considered taxable income, bringing my "yearly income" to $104K/yr. Such an increase would result in approximately $10,000/yr of extra tax liability for me, or about 27% of my pre-tax income, and more like 40% of my post-tax income. This would simply be unsustainable for most graduate students. Rent alone is typically about 50-70% of the take home pay for a grad student in my area.
Apparently the GOP doesn't give a crap about advanced research. And before anyone accuses me of doing something "useless", I am an aerospace engineering graduate student.
https://www.wired.com/story/grad-studen ... should-be/
Wow, 38k/yr is this highest stipend I have heard of. This is more than full time job Junior faculty in Europe make. I was in this situation too, paying tuition when times got rough. That's a reality; it is your duty to pay taxes. I had to use $90k/yr earned income to survive as a grad student one year, and so can you. Pay your taxes. You are privileged as are the faculty. The irony of grad students lobbying for tax cuts/exemptions and unionization is a pleasure to watch. It feels like attending a child's tenth birthday.
The irony of $180k/yr or even $300k/yr liberal families howling about Democrat driven state taxation on the "middle class" is also a long hoped-for occasion. If you want lower taxes, reduce the size and cost of government like the rest of us. Those of us in the private sector pay taxes not only on our income, but note that our income consists of post-tax customer dollars. A government or nonprofit worker's income is paid with pretax customer dollars. Welcome to the real world. Eventually we will see that the real solution is to control and manage the size of government via an adult process. Many people live in a world where government spending should be infinite, but their personal taxes zero. Left and right. Can't work that way. Reality will hit eventually whether people want to admit it or not.
$38K/yr is decent but not that much in my area due to cost of living (also did you even bother to think to factor in inflation?). If you want to completely discourage advanced research and decimate the American post-graduate education system in STEM, then advocate for this bill. If you paid your tuition yourself and was studying in a STEM field, then frankly you clearly weren't worth very much as a researcher. The fact that you think reducing corporate taxes and taxes on the top few percent of our nation is worth sacrificing America's position as a research leader says more about you than my position of keeping the tuition waver exemption says about me. I am not sure how we in academia are privileged compared to the corporations which have immensely more wealth and lobbying power. Corporations benefit from our relatively low cost, having us do their research for them at a fraction of the cost they would have to pay an engineer of our qualifications and ability. This is especially true now as the average length of a STEM PhD has increased from about 4 years in the 70s/80s to 5.5 or 6 in the modern day.
