
The destruction of graduate education in the United States - lisper
https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3542
======
theptip
I found this article to be quite hysterical (and I follow and enjoy Aaronson's
blog). It fails to present (or even consider) that there is a reasonable
justification for these tax code changes, and instead leaps to "Trump and the
Republicans must be evil and are out to crush all liberal edifices".

An article recently posted here on HN gives a more nuanced explanation for
what's going on:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15807842](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15807842)

TL;DR, the tuition fee deferral scheme that universities currently use is a
grant-money laundering scheme. It's used to take federal grant money that
comes with strings attached (e.g. can only be spent on certain things like
paying salaries for grad students, or research costs) and launder it into
money that can be spent on whatever the university wants (e.g. building new
campuses or paying for nice desks for administrators). It's probably not
unreasonable for the federal government to try to close this loophole.

The issue is that students are caught in the crossfire here, and I'm not sure
that the incentives are there for universities to protect them fully.

But to be clear, the universities could just stop billing the government false
grad student salaries, and then grad students' take home pay and tax exposure
would remain unchanged, and there would be no crisis. The problem is that then
universities would have to find a new money laundering scheme, or would have
to make structural changes to their budgets that they would prefer not to
make.

~~~
dmix
It's sad that there seems to be little internal critique coming from within
universities of the complete takeover of schools by administrators. When it
does happen it's almost entirely the result of some external rumblings or a
direct affront like this being twisted.

I guess it's because these same administrators ultimately control the
narratives (and budgets, jobs, etc) coming from the schools, creating a self-
protecting cycle which only generates more administrative power.

So when attempts to curtail their power happen they can twist it to make it
seem like it's an attack on teachers, students, and research - instead of the
separate group of people who consume the greatest amount of resources within
the school, who don't generate the positive research and economic utility for
which universities are typically known.

Which is a shame, because there are probably no better people to stand up for
this than the professors and researchers. Plenty of research has shown these
people and their work aren't responsible for the massive increase in tuition
and costs associated with schools. Yet the problem is perpetually the amount
of revenue and income the school can make, not how it's being used.

~~~
throwawayjava
_> It's sad that there seems to be little internal critique coming from within
universities of the complete takeover of schools by administrators_

This is just patently false.

The criticism of admin bloat by faculty and students precedes the right-wing
press criticism by _decades_ , is _far_ more harsh, and is still going strong.

The whole damn criticism, as it exists in the popular press today, can be
traced quite directly back to academia
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Ginsberg_(political_s...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Ginsberg_\(political_scientist\))

Or a more recent example,
[https://home.isi.org/sites/default/files/MA59.3_Seery_Sympos...](https://home.isi.org/sites/default/files/MA59.3_Seery_SymposiumEssay.pdf)

And from the student perspective, the recent votes at places like Chicago to
unionize (and, more importantly, the justification provided by the student
groups that organized those votes)

Far from complicit, faculty and students are _leading the charge_ , and have
been since the 1980s.

BTW, if you wanted to curtail administrative bloat/power in universities,
there are ways to use the tax code and science funding policy to do so. and
lots of serious policy proposals by the people listed above would very likely
have great effect.

This policy targets students instead.

~~~
4bpp
> And from the student perspective, the recent votes at places like Chicago to
> unionize (and, more importantly, the justification provided by the student
> groups that organized those votes)

I'm at a school that underwent a grad student unionisation drive, and pretty
much everything that the union proposed would have amounted to further
empowering the administration at the expense of the academics (e.g.
introducing new mediator officials with extensive compulsive power over
advisors if their students should feel wronged in one way or another, hiring
more staff to enforce diversity-friendly admissions and hiring outcomes, ...).
At least the politicised end of the student body seems to consider the
administration, rather than the academics, to be their natural ally.

~~~
throwawayjava
This is debatable and its own rabbit hole that is beat to death on other
recent stories. But anyways, I understand the point, and this is why I stated:

 _> and, more importantly, the justification provided by the student groups
that organized those votes_

~~~
4bpp
I'm sorry that I can't provide more details or evidence (lest I leak bits of
identifying information), but as far as I can tell, our union has not made any
statement to the effect of considering excessive administrative power or even
bloat an issue.

------
jknoepfler
The systematic erosion of public education in the United States doesn't serve
anyone in the United States' long term interests, except maybe the religious
right (who don't matter that much in the federal government). It just doesn't
serve monied interests. It doesn't help big oil, it doesn't help big pharma,
it doesn't help the legal or medical professions, it doesn't help finance, or
insurance, or banking. So I'm a little puzzled. Who does it benefit?

I share the author's bewilderment in the face of the realization that this is,
in fact, terrible for universities, and (seemingly, given what we know) not
just weird news spin-doctoring or scare mongering:

 _" Given the existential risk to American higher education, why didn’t I blog
about this earlier? ... It’s simply that I didn’t believe it—even given all
the other stuff that could “never happen in the US,” until it happened this
past year... Surely even the House Republicans would realize they’d screwed up
this time, and would take out this crazy provision before the full bill was
voted on? Or surely there’s some workaround that makes the whole thing less
awful than it sounds? There has to be … right?"_

I'm also confused. I decided that I didn't have the right kind of information
to understand what was happening in the Federal government a long time ago,
and I still think that, but I find this whole situation very puzzling, because
it doesn't make much sense given how I think the world works (which is, of
course, a deeply flawed and nearly useless model of the real world).

~~~
vvanders
I think if you view this through the lens of identity politics it makes a bit
more sense why you're seeing such an attack on education and universities.

When climate denial and the rejection of basic science is one of the pillars
of the party then this is a logical extension.

~~~
x0x0
This is the point of the tax bill: to punish blue states and the educated.

The removal of state income tax deductions; the cutting of mortgage interest
deductions; and the removal of the graduate school tax break all point the
same direction.

As for Scott's suggestion that maybe universities can not charge, I can't
possibly see that flying with the IRS. If the students still get that valuable
education, taking something that used to cost $30k or more, declaring it
"free" while still delivering the thing, and telling the irs that therefore,
tada! no taxes are due! is... very unlikely to work.

What we have is the removal of a specific tax break aimed at graduate school
education in order to punish the educated.

~~~
leereeves
None of these changes punishes anyone. Each of these changes removes some form
of favoritism.

Right now, people in states with high tax rates, people with mortgages, and
graduate students pay lower federal tax rates than other people who don't
share those favored statuses. One could more credibly argue that the current
system punishes people who don't receive these tax breaks.

(Graduate students are favored if you count free tuition as compensation in
the same way benefits like cars or apartments given to employees by other
employers count as taxable compensation.)

~~~
digitaltrees
You can argue that this isn’t punishment. But I don’t think you can argue that
this isn’t targeted or a clear expression of priorities. Churches aren’t being
taxed here. They could have lost their tax exempt status. The Increase to the
Child tax credit that would have helped low income families isn’t in the bill.
There is no reduction in military spending to offset the cost. And it sure
looks like the states most severely affected by removing the state tax
deduction vote democratic. Especially since these states actually subsidize
most of the other states through their much larger tax base and its
contributions to federal tax that is redistributed to the rest of the country.

Let’s remember that grad students are now being taxed for money they never
receive. It’s not like money is changing hands for tuition. If they were a
business and the university paid them $100k they would be able to expense the
tuition.

~~~
leereeves
A grad student working a different job has to pay taxes on the income used to
pay tuition, as does a student who borrows the tuition and repays it while
working a different job in the future.(1) This is a very specific favoritism -
not even favoring all grad students, but only grad students working for
universities. And ultimately, favoring the universities by lowering their grad
student labor costs.

1: Excluding some limited credits and deductions of at most a few thousand
dollars each. Will graduate assistants be eligible for these?

~~~
digitaltrees
What PhD program requires the payment of tuition?

~~~
leereeves
What PhD program allows students who aren't working for the university as a
teaching or research assistant and doesn't charge them tuition?

~~~
digitaltrees
How is that relevant. Grad students work because they are doing research
relevant to their degree and are teaching so they can learn to be professors.
It’s all part of the program. The get paid for their work and they pay tax on
it. The government pays their tuition in the form of a grant or the university
endowments pays the tuition because the university needs to cover operational
costs. Tuition has nothing to do with a grad students income. The only reason
they are invoiced for it is that represents their portion of the university
operating budget.

~~~
leereeves
Tuition is part of the compensation graduate assistants receive for working
for the university.

There's no reason universities should receive special treatment here. They
should pay their employees enough to live on, after taxes, like all other
employers, and the fringe benefit of free tuition should be taxed like other
fringe benefits.

~~~
digitaltrees
In what way is it compensation? So we should calculate sales tax based on
sticker price rather than actual paid price?

Grad students receive a salary for their work and a discount from the sticker
price of the tuition. They are separate transactions.

~~~
leereeves
The transactions are tied: grad students have other (often much better)
options for employment; they choose to work for a grad school because they
value the free tuition.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
No, they choose to work in PhD programs because they value _doing research_.

------
MollyR
When some of endowments for many universities are in the millions and Harvard
has an endowment of 37.5 billion, I find it hard to have sympathy towards
this.

The colleges and universities have become corporations that run on student
loans and graduate student slave labor. This has to change, and it will be a
painful process no matter what happens.

[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)

~~~
mikeash
Is massively raising taxes on graduate students actually going to help
matters?

~~~
blfr
Couldn't the universities just appropriately price the graduate school tuition
instead of pretending it's worth tens of thousands of dollars a year and then
giving it away for free?

~~~
SeanLuke
They don't give it away for free. It's typically paid by someone.

For example, my graduate students are on NSF grants that I applied for. The
grants pay the graduate students a stipend and health insurance costs, they
pay my university the full cost of in-state tuition and fees, and they pay
overhead on those costs. These are all budgeted for.

~~~
Nrsolis
Then I think it's fair to ask if it's really OK to subsidize that compensation
delivered in terms of valuable education.

You can argue that graduate students and universities are just another special
interest lobbying the government for a tax exemption that benefits them. There
is nothing special about graduate education when you're conferring something
that's inherently valuable (namely MS and PhD degrees) to a lucky few.

You could further argue that it's unfair to ask blue-collar workers in fly-
over states to pay higher taxes because of the impact of such a subsidy.

There is a lot to like in the tax bill: interest on second homes isn't going
to be subsidized nor are new mortgage interest on homes over $1M. Frankly, I
think it should have been applied to ALL homes over $1M since many economists
have argued vociferously that such an exemption is a huge subsidy to the high-
cost states.

I'd also like to see a revisitation of the taxation of carried-interest for
hedge funds. There is no reason to consider performance bonuses as a return on
capital if they don't have any basis in the investment/capital at risk.

But arguing that graduate students (LUCKY graduate students) are worthy of
some kind of exemption is just lobbying. You could easily make the same
argument for active-duty armed service members. Frankly, I'd support a tax
reduction on those people. They've suffered from our national follies to a
disproportionate degree.

~~~
throwawayjava
_> LUCKY graduate students_

The overall tenor of your post is a bit disingenuous. The data tells us that
getting a PhD does not substantially improve your material existence, or at
least that the picture is murky.

The data also tells us that the science that comes out of the research
performed during those PhDs has an enormous positive ROI for society.

So in other words, phd students are under-paid take a lifelong financial hit
to provide large but diffuse benefits to society, benefits that most students
won't be able to capture because, well, that's the nature of basic science..

 _> You can argue that graduate students and universities are just another
special interest lobbying the government for a tax exemption that benefits
them_

Since everything's a special interest, we might as well throw the money at oil
executives?

No, of course not. Some of those special interests really are worth investing
in. Roads, schools, and labs provide enormous and measurable, if diffuse,
value.

 _> You could further argue that it's unfair to ask blue-collar workers in
fly-over states to pay higher taxes because of the impact of such a subsidy._

This bill will most harm the public and low-endowment universities in those
flyover states. The schools those workers' children will attend will be less
well-staffed and there will be fewer opportunities for funded graduate
programs.

 _> You could easily make the same argument for active-duty armed service
members. Frankly, I'd support a tax reduction on those people_

Good news: they already receive very large tax exemptions. As they should; the
armed services are also an important special interest...

~~~
Nrsolis
If you don't think earning a PhD substantially improves your material
existence, I'd beg to differ. There are plenty of folks who don't have PhD's
who would be better positioned in the job market if they had the talent and
opportunity to earn one. For every student lucky enough to earn a spot doing
research there are plenty that don't have the opportunity and have to go out
into the real world and earn a living.

I meet plenty of PhD's in my regular practice. Not every person earns a PhD
and stays in academia. PLENTY earn that degree and use it as a stepping stone
to a high-paying job in the private sector.

As for oil executives: they're not going to be the biggest winners here.
Shareholders likely will be. That repatriated capital is going to lead to a
huge share buyback and dividends. Wanna know who's going to get a large chunk
of that? PENSION FUNDS for state employees. If you think CALPERS doesn't stand
to benefit from this surging stock market you're not paying attention.

I wonder if you realize how much you sound like a lobbyist? Without a tax
subsidy, there is a calamity. Every time someone warns that a tax increase
will affect investment or job creation or cause a shift in the deployment of
capital, people in favor of said increase downplay those fears.

All the folks who said that a $15 minimum wage would kill job creation....were
those folks wrong?

And here we are, hearing that the removal of a special tax treatment will
massively impact graduate education. Well, maybe. Maybe not. I guess we will
have to see.

So the cost to a student to receive a PhD goes up a bit. Big deal. Is that
gonna kill research entirely? There is already a glut of PhDs here in the USA.
Maybe a few less isn't such a bad thing.

~~~
throwawayjava
_> There are plenty of folks who don't have PhD's who would be better
positioned in the job market if they had the talent and opportunity to earn
one._

Cool anecdotes and all, but there's data on this question and you're wrong.
PhDs do not increase lifetime earnings.

This isn't a case of dueling anecdotes. It's a normal fact we can verify with
data.

 _> As for oil executives: they're not going to be the biggest winners here.
Shareholders likely will be._

And I suppose oil executives store their fortunes in bold bars...?

 _> PENSION FUNDS for state employees_

This is such a BS excuse for favoring capital.

It is, in fact, possible to write tax code that differentiates between the
two.

The current tax bill does not, in fact, actually do so.

And worse, it even rolls back benefits that _did_ differentiate between
"filthy rich" and "working class saving for retirement"!

 _> I wonder if you realize how much you sound like a lobbyist?_

Says the one conflating upper class investment income with pension funds while
defending a policy that slashes retirement benefits and dismissing _hard
facts_ with personal anecdotes about how well-off people making 30k/yr are...

~~~
Nrsolis
AHEM.

[https://www.wes.org/wp-
content/uploads/2017/05/blog_20140722...](https://www.wes.org/wp-
content/uploads/2017/05/blog_20140722-02-Work-Life-Earnings.jpg)

~~~
lmeyerov
AHEM. As above, it takes work to be as wrong as you are, so this seems like
either an amazing amount of ignorance, or deliberate deception.

1\. What it shows: Students good enough to get accepted into PhD programs are
good enough to get paid more in general. Good we're talking about this -- the
market clearly values these people!

2\. What it misses: ... But what if a PhD-capable person instead just went
directly into industry? What is the opportunity cost of taking a pause of 4-7
years to do R&D for the public?

3\. What economists found: By looking at students graduating from a good
school and therefore PhD-capable, and then comparing the result of them doing
4-7 years of PhD vs not.. the students who took time to contribute to science
lost out on a ton of money. They're quite literally donating their time to
society.

Phrasing it as _subsidizing_ these people to do R&D is misleading. The reality
is the government is underpaying for the public service of growing the
economy, especially relative to market rates for people equally qualified to
make a bunch of $$$ working on social media ads and fancy juice machines.

But that breaks the narrative. The actual studies show the salary sweet spot
is somewhere between a BS and MS. That means federal institutions must _lure_
PhDs, not drive them away.

~~~
dang
> _AHEM. As above, it takes work to be as wrong as you are, so this seems like
> either an amazing amount of ignorance, or deliberate deception_

This sort of uncharitable swiping breaks the HN guidelines. So do insinuations
of astroturfing, which you did elsewhere in this thread. I realize it can be
hard to restrain oneself when someone else is wrong on the internet, but
please make the effort and edit such acid out of your comments if you want to
keep posting here. You can always set 'delay' in your profile to give yourself
time to edit before others see your comment; that's what I do.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
vintageseltzer
An uneducated society is easy to manipulate — easy to convince that climate
change isn't real, that evolution is a conspiracy against religion, that
creating a social safety net and investing in public education, health care
and modern infrastructure is a bad thing.

I hate to turn social issues into black and white, partisan debates. But anti-
intellectualism and the denigration of education is a uniquely right-wing
phenomenon in the U.S. It's used often by the Republican party here to
criticize "elites" and is employed by a long list of other power-hungry
demagogues throughout world history [1].

Isaac Asimov wrote a column in January 1980 in Newsweek that describes this
phenomenon in the U.S.:

> There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has
> been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding
> its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false
> notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your
> knowledge."

I encourage everyone to read the full column [2].

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-
intellectualism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-intellectualism) [2]:
[https://aphelis.net/wp-
content/uploads/2012/04/ASIMOV_1980_C...](https://aphelis.net/wp-
content/uploads/2012/04/ASIMOV_1980_Cult_of_Ignorance.pdf)

~~~
dclowd9901
> An uneducated society is easy to manipulate

This is nonsense. There’s no Illuminati out to make the population dumber.
There _is_ a bunch of identity politics ignoramouses out the gut colleges that
“corrupt our values” and it’s an easy thing to point to as a win when your
base (who keep you in power) are mouth breathing retards who see higher
education (and intelligence in general) as nuisances.

Make no mistake: their goal is more money for companies, and this is merely a
way to keep their base happy so they can keep their shareholders happy.

------
matt1234567
The version of this bill which passed the Senate last night did not end the
tuition tax credit [0]. Additionally, tax cuts do sometimes expire after a few
years. For example, this info from Intuit indicates that the tuition tax
credit in question expired at the end of 2016 [1].

Editing this upon a close rereading of [1]. I'm not sure if that refers to the
same tuition tax credit. Any armchair tax lawyers care to weigh in?

But, I have called my representatives and asked them to make sure that the
credit survives reconciliation of the bill between the House and Senate,
because I don't think that graduate student pay should be used as a bargaining
chip.

[0]:
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/11/30/what-...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/11/30/what-
is-in-the-senates-massive-tax-bill-and-what-could-change/)

[1]: [https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips/college-and-
education/d...](https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips/college-and-
education/deduction-for-higher-education/L0krerdUK)

~~~
CalChris
The House version of the bill eliminates the student loan deduction for
graduate students. This will be resolved in conference so it is still very
much on the table.

~~~
matt1234567
Yes. My intent was to foster not complacency but hope - everyone reading this,
please get on the phone with your representatives as soon as their offices
open and tell them to keep the tuition credits while the bill is in
conference!

[https://whoismyrepresentative.com](https://whoismyrepresentative.com)

------
gravypod

        > As you’ve probably heard, one of the ways Republicans intend to pay for their tax
        >  giveaway, is to change the tax code so that graduate students will now need to
        > pay taxes on “tuition”—a large sum of money (as much as $50,000/year) that
        > PhD students never actually see, that can easily exceed the stipends they do
        > see, and that’s basically just an accounting trick that serves the internal needs
        > of universities and granting agencies.
    

If I'm working for a company, the company decides "it is required for you to
have X. We will provide it to you as part of your compensation." That X is
part of my compensation for working there. I don't see why it shouldn't be
taxed. "It will cost me more money" is not an excuse to not be taxed. "The
students never get the money" is invalid because colleges have deemed their
"X" to be worth 50k.

Let me phrase this situation a different way. Assume I start working for
Bloomberg's HF trading group. They want me to live closer to my office and buy
my a penthouse apartment half a block down. They pay for it (made the
contract, own the building, pay the staff, etc) but it's in my name. It's my
apartment. Is that part of my income? Shouldn't I be taxed for this apartment?
I never actually see the money! I never actually get to spend the money! It's
just something that has to happen for me to be on Bloomberg's HF trading team!

I think that should be taxable. What do you think?

~~~
zzleeper
It's not really like the apartment example. When I was in grad school the
tuition number was kind of an imaginary number. It was 60k or something like
that, no idea. I never signed anything with that, was never billed for that,
nothing. The only way I could know what that number was somewhere on my online
account, where I saw:

>> Charge: +$60,000 from Graduate School Division

>> Payment: -$60,000 from Graduate Department of XYZ

And that was not the value of the education either. Even in quarters where you
are not physically in the school, with no classes, library access, etc. you
would still be "charged" that magic number. It's just a way to allocate
expenses between each department and the graduate school.

In most cases they will just change the accounting to something even weirder,
and the government will get nothing. Some schools, with arcane rules from
donors (such as that their money can only be used for education and not
infrastructure) will have problems. But for the most part it's just a stupid
thing to do from the govt side, that will just complicate things even more.

~~~
gravypod

        > And that was not the value of the education either
    

Why not?

    
    
        > Even in quarters where you are not physically in the school, with no
        > classes, library access, etc. you would still be "charged" that magic
        > number. It's just a way to allocate expenses between each department
        > and the graduate school.
    
    

This isn't just for allocating expenses. This is what a grad student is
assessed to cost an institution. Did you ever contact the PI of your grant
while you were away? Did you attach the universities name to your work? Did
you access journals with subscriptions paid for by your institution? Did you
use your student email?

~~~
zzleeper
I did a finance PhD. We don't have PIs. Email cost is trivial, etc.

Put it another way: I don't care if my employer just spent a bunch of money on
a better building or more comfy office chairs. I don't care if the IT
department charges my unit $XYZ for expenses (call it "tuition" if you want).

That's something that happens on the back end of my employer, and is not an
income for me. That's the same thing for grad school. I got paid 20k to work
on research, teach, grade, and help in maintaining the school's name so they
can get MBA students (who ultimately pay the bills in our case). Why should I
care if one unit at my school charged another unit? Heck, I paid taxes and
social security on those 20k, got health insurance, had a W2, etc.

For all practical purposes, PhD students are employees. Make them pay taxes on
their income, and not on the incidental expenses of their employers.

------
tdaltonc
I think that the grad student tax would _increase_ the number of grad
students.

If the tax increase goes through, universities will probably respond my
significantly increasing "indirects" and decreasing tuition. They could
twiddle the numbers so that the university still makes the same average off of
every grant, and students take homes don't change at all.

But there would be in important difference: from a PI's perspective, grad
students would be relatively cheaper. Paradoxically, taxing tuition may have
the net effect of creating more grad student positions (while decreasing the
spend on capital investments).

------
leereeves
Why wouldn't the obvious solution work? Raise graduate student stipends to
cover the tax.

~~~
munin
The money doesn't exist to do that. Graduate student stipends are paid out of
government grants, and the amount of money issued by the government as grants
is going down.

~~~
leereeves
They could make it grant-neutral by lowering the tuition rates at the same
time. The universities would receive less money but it need not be "the
destruction of graduate education".

~~~
munin
The university is using that money for _something_ already, and now it isn't.
I guess this depends on what that something is. If they're just stuffing it
under their mattresses or using it to pay some associate under provost for
squirrel education a $150k salary, or putting marble plating in the athlete
dorms, then this probably isn't a big loss. If it's going to something like
students with disabilities or need based scholarships...

~~~
leereeves
It's only a bit of an exaggeration to say that a lot of money is used to "pay
some associate under provost for squirrel education a $150k salary, or put
marble plating in the athlete dorms". Surely the universities could find some
expenses to cut that wouldn't hurt too much.

~~~
munin
Maybe! You'd have to look at the numbers. I remember the last time someone
showed me numbers, actually most of the money went into core operations cost
to offset money that the state used to contribute.

Though I think in this particular case, for my particular institution, the
University could totally mitigate all financial cost to graduate students by
cutting the subsidy the University gives to the athletics programs (about 15%
of the athletics budget is paid for by the students in the form of fees the
students are assessed on top of their tuition).

------
starchild_3001
Republicans are anti-science, anti-immigration to the extent they want to curb
university research and stop the flow of world's smartest immigrants to USA.

That's the only rational explanation of what's going on.

If that wasn't the intent, the people who created and voted for this bill are
the biggest idiots.

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tony_cannistra
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