The newly released GOP tax bill will do a lot of bad things for education.
- Public school teachers will no longer be able to get tax deductions for the money they spend out-of-pocket for school supplies. This hurts students and teachers alike!
- College students will have to start paying taxes on the interest accrued for student loans. This affects not just current college students and recent college graduates, but only raises the cost of a college education for everyone (and making it more out-of-reach for thousands).
- (One that's particularly relevant to me and a lot of people I know) Graduate students will be forced to pay taxes on tuition waivers. As you (might) know, graduate students get a stipend, and the university grants a tuition waiver (which a graduate student never sees). The new bill will make it so that PhD students will be taxed not only on their stipend (which is what happens now, and totally fine), but also on this tuition waiver that they never see. The impact? Graduate students -- who usually make between $20K - $30K -- will start paying an additional $4K - $13K in taxes, on money they/we/I don't even earn. It's ridiculous, and the impacts are far reaching and all negative: from making graduate education unaffordable, to potential brain drain.
In a state of "I'm not sure what to do about this, but I'm mad!", I started a
change.org petition, since I couldn't find one that already exists. I hope you'll consider:
2. Sharing it with your friends, family, and colleagues.
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