
Grad students protest GOP's tax hike and prepare to fight about tuition - ryan_j_naughton
https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/1/16723844/tax-bill-gop-graduate-students-phd-tuition-waivers-uc-berkeley-protests-walkouts-rallies?google_editors_picks=true
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jernfrost
Seriously American students should consider studying abroad. PhDs is a paid
job in many countries. Also graduate and undergrad programs are tuition free,
even for Americans in many European countries.

I think a problem is many Americans think they have the top universities in
the world, but you forget that is really only the ivy league which most
Americans will not be able to attend anyway.

I went to a decent university in the US, before going to the Netherlands
instead. I got to say it was much better in the Netherlands for several
reasons:

1\. Most of my professors shockingly spoke BETTER english than at the US
university. WHY? Because in the US there is an abundance of
professors/teachers from foreign countries, especially from India and various
asian countries. These professors often pronunciations of the english language
which is hard for an American or European to understand. Dutch professors in
contrast speak very clear english. Yes dutch is the native language, but at
Master level all courses are taught in english if you don't speak dutch. For
undergrad there are several special schools which do english only teaching.

2\. More modern facilities. They had better equipped university library. Newer
computers in the computer labs etc.

3\. They teach you more about how to think. I felt US university was closer to
a high school experience. A lot of hand holding and focused on learning lots
of stuff. In the Netherlands it was less workload but harder problems. You
spend more time thinking than doing.

4\. More time with your professor and less time with student assistants and
other non-professionals.

5\. Easer to be a student in general. You don't need a car to get around.
Dutch cities are very walk and bike friendly, and there is lots of public
transportation.

6\. More FREEDOM! For young people there seems to be way too many restrictions
in the US. Can't drink until 21. Gender separated dormitories etc. I find that
in the Netherlands and Europe in general you are treated more as an adult. You
live in apartments with other students on campus (or off) and there are nobody
going around enforcing lots of stupid rules.

~~~
sytelus
In current state of affairs, US acts a giant vaccine pump for talent which
means lot of great academics which were supposed to exist in their native
countries now exist in one of US universities. I think the recent number on US
contribution to research output of the world was staggering 35% far eclipsing
any other countries in the world. If you are looking for great department you
don't really have lot of choice. However current political climate is rapidly
changing this status quo.

~~~
skummetmaelk
How do you measure research output? If you measure it as papers published per
capita (admittedly not a very good metric), several european countries lie
above the US. The EU in general also has the highest amount of
scientists/researchers per capita.

We tend to be biased against results from outside the major ivy league
institutions because ivy league results are reported in the press as "harvard
professor finds X" whereas the rest of the world has its findings reported as
"researches discover Y", or if they are lucky "scientists from country X
discover Y". This leads to the extremely superior branding of the top US
universities which everyone can name, while they struggle to name 3 of the
best institutions in Europe.

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Rnd1729
Schools essentially try to double dip here dancing between for-profit/non-
profit status.

By giving a tuition-waiver instead of "free tuition" they can consider this a
business expense and write off the tuition.

The worst part about this is the write off gets bigger if tuition is bigger.

Don't fall victim to distilling things down to a headline. Read deeper and
understand.

It's not just about what things do but how they do it and in this case this
had to go.

~~~
greglindahl
Ther'e s a lot of misinformation floating around this discussion. The school
that gave me a tuition waiver was owned by the State of Virginia and doesn't
pay taxes. Almost all private US schools are charities and don't pay taxes for
education-related activities.

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LeoJiWoo
American Universities are for profit corporations and need to be investigated.
They have huge endowments and pay admins huge sums.

Yet they crush students with unbelievably high tuition. We have a student loan
crisis, that is mentally destroying millennials. They refuse to pay grad
students a living wage. They refuse to open up publicly funded research. They
overfund huge sports teams while underfunding much needed scientific research.

Universities may have been a beacon of science before, but now they are a
profit-seeking parasite destroying students and true scientific progress.

Endowments:

Harvard - 35 billion

Yale - 25 billion

Stanford - 22 billion

Princeton - 21 billion

MIT - 12 billion

Upenn - 10 billion

Texas A&M - 9 billion

Why do these universities need taxpayer money AND force students to take loans
?!

[https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/the-short-
lis...](https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/the-short-list-
college/articles/2017-09-28/10-universities-with-the-biggest-endowments)

------
mankash666
Let's face it - this is a dubious tactic adopted by schools. The latest leaks
show universities stashing money offshore. Just clean up your act - Phds are
free labor, don't swallow federal grants for exploiting them

~~~
irq11
So, your logic is that it’s fine to tax _tuition waivers_ as income, because
the schools should be paying more? How does that work?

This is a dubious tactic adopted by a sleazy political party to ram a bill
through congress by taxing _literally everything they can_ in order to make
their other tax cuts look revenue neutral.

~~~
defertoreptar
>How does that work?

Say a company is paying Bob $40k to build a better mouse trap. He pays tax on
the full $40k.

Then, there's a national mouse problem, so the government gives the company
$20k to stimulate research into better mouse traps.

The company takes that money and offers to pay $20k worth of Bob's housing,
food, and commute every year, but now only pays Bob $20k a year in salary.

Bob doesn't mind this because he has the same disposable income after all is
said and done. Except now, Bob only has to pay taxes on $20k.

~~~
stu2010
The graduate students in question here already pay income taxes on their
stipend, which is used to cover housing, food, and commute.

The only thing they get "tax free" is tuition, which they shouldn't be paying
because in most cases they aren't even taking any classes.

~~~
defertoreptar
>The only thing they get "tax free" is tuition, which they shouldn't be paying
because in most cases they aren't even taking any classes.

That's my point. If you swap the $20k in my example to tuition, the economics
is exactly the same. They're being charged it either way. The fact that the
university is giving it "for free" allows them to pay the grad student that
much less. As a result, taxable income vanishes.

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madengr
"That’s something Margaret Mary Downey, an elected representative for
Berkeley’s graduate student union and a fifth-year PhD student studying social
welfare, wants to change."

Wow, 5 years into a welfare PhD. Not exactly quantum chromodynamics, but she
is an expert at living off the state. Seems more to me like a bunch of whiny
socialist wanting everything free. I'm taxed, as income, for any grad classes
my employer pays for. I'd say they are just closing a loophole. It goes both
ways.

~~~
UncleMeat
During my PhD I took three classes. This isn't "grad classes my employer pays
for" at all.

------
pks016
I wanted to apply for graduate schools in US this semester, last date of
application is around 15 Dec. (I am from India)

But now I am confused. With this kind of uncertainty, I don't know what to do.

~~~
chriskanan
If you can afford it, I'd still apply. The senate version of the bill doesn't
tax tuition waivers, unlike the house version. That means the final bill may
not include that provision. Even if it does include that provision, the
universities will probably find a way to get around this, I assume. Otherwise,
they would face enormous problems paying PhD students enough money to live on.

Also, you may want to apply to some schools outside of the US as well, e.g.,
Canada, UK, etc.

~~~
jernfrost
People forget that you can do graduate programs in english in plenty of non-
native english speaking countries. All graduate programs in the Netherlands
e.g. are offered in english.

A reason to not forget this is that anglo-saxon countries usually have high
tuition fees, while outside the anglo-saxon world you can frequently find
tuition free or schools with very low tuition.

It is not like lower tuition means worse quality. I've a master partly both in
the US and the Netherlands, and the dutch university was much better. Better
facilities, better professors, better designed programs.

Of course top American universities are the best in the world, but once you go
below that level, American universities are not necessarily that good.
University quality varies much more widely in the US and UK e.g. In
Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands, Germany etc, quality will be more
even.

------
sytelus
This is truly abomination in my view. Everyone knows how graduate students
live on shoestring budgets and that in itself is non-incentive to take
graduate studies. Today US thrives because of its research output and lead in
technology. This singular measure can change that. On the top of this, the
bill makes religious education more accessible.

~~~
betterunix2
"Everyone knows how graduate students live on shoestring budgets"

Actually, people do not know this, because a lot of people have never met grad
students. That is one of the reasons Republicans can get away with this: their
base has no clue what this is about and will probably not be affected by it.

~~~
obmelvin
And the people who are affected by and large won't vote for Trump, so they
know they can make this political move to offset the 'cuts' to those who will
vote Republican. Very sad.

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bob_theslob646
>Until the tax bill drew national attention to these tuition waivers, many
graduate students didn’t spend much time thinking about them. “I knew my
tuition was being waived,” says first-year anthropology PhD student Levi Vonk.
“I had never thought about the political implications that meant that someday
Republicans would try to tax my waived tuition. I just assumed that would
never be taxed.”

Unfortunately, with this guy at the helm for the next couple of years, nothing
will be sacred.

------
IIAOPSW
Makes sense. Grad students don't vote Republican anyway so why wouldn't the
current admin fuck em'.

------
puppetmaster40
Dear Berkeley U.: Students don't have income. Also 40% of lowest paid pay $0
taxes.

PS. Is it OK to post right articles on HN, or no dissenting allowed? Ex: Would
this make it to the home page or nah? Asking for a friend.
[http://twitter.com/TheEconomist/status/933013221824397312](http://twitter.com/TheEconomist/status/933013221824397312)

~~~
detaro
That article was on the front page, yes.

~~~
puppetmaster40
Link?

~~~
detaro
easy to find via HN search:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15748368](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15748368)

