The following question faces Congress, and therefore it faces the American
people: should graduate education be affordable for Americans? Doctoral
training programs in this country are funded through grants made by federal
institutions including the National Science Foundation, the National
Endowment for the Humanities, the Department of Defense, and the National
Institutes of Health.
This grant application process is extremely competitive, with groups of the
country’s leading researchers writing detailed proposals which specify how
precious federal dollars will be spent. A large proportion of awarded grant
money is dedicated to training graduate students.
Graduate students are an essential part of the nation’s research labor force.
They are the workers who conduct the experiments, collect the data, and write
the software that keeps scientific progress moving forward. They investigative
how we communicate, they restore the lost heritage of our nation’s past, and
they help to educate others who are seeking higher education as teaching
assistants at colleges in all fifty states.
Training graduate students is expensive. They often require huge investments in
laboratory space and equipment, in addition to experiences that need to be
created for them in the classroom and in the field for them to achieve mastery
over their area of study. In addition to paying for these costs through grants,
universities also provide a stipend, usually less than $30,000 per year, to help
graduate students pay for their living expenses. The stipend is usually the only
take-home income that a graduate student earns while earning their doctorate
due to the high demands of their training.
In the past, only the stipend was taxed by the federal government as income,
however the current version of the House of Representative’s proposed Tax Cuts &
Jobs Act (H.R. 1) seeks to change that. The Tax Cuts & Jobs Act would add the
cost of doctoral training (paid for by the university through grants) to each
student’s individual income. The cost of training regularly exceeds $40,000, and
therefore H.R. 1 would increase many doctoral student’s tax bills to the point
where their stipend alone would not provide a living wage.
Therefore, let us return to the question asked at the beginning of this essay:
should graduate education be affordable for Americans? H.R. 1 would make it
extraordinarily difficult for those who are not independently wealthy to be
able to afford graduate school. Our nation is speckled with some of the greatest
educational and research centers to ever exist. These institutions are not
limited to elite coastal communities: Urbana-Champaign, Blacksburg, Tuscaloosa,
Lincoln, and Iowa City all host research departments that are the envy of the
world. Do we want to put these institutions out of reach after two centuries of
building them up for our mutual national benefit? The prominence and continued
success of America’s ability to produce new knowledge can only be guaranteed if
these institutions can continue to attract the best and brightest to their
graduate programs.
In an era where folks are doubting America’s future exceptionalism in the world,
the quality of our educational and research institutions is one area where we
are still truly number one. A great deal of credit for this continued
achievement belongs to our country’s graduate students, who have chosen to
dedicate years to their art or science in order to move our world forward and to
protect our country’s greatness. If you believe the great artistic works and
scientific technologies of this century should be created in the United States,
then please contact your Senator and ask them to vote NO to changes to the tax
code until graduate students are protected. If you’re unsure about how to
contact your Senator I encourage you to use 5calls.org
to help you get in touch. Future generations of researchers are counting on all
of us, so thank you for speaking up on their behalf!
The following question faces Congress, and therefore it faces the American
people: should graduate education be affordable for Americans? Doctoral
training programs in this country are funded through grants made by federal
institutions including the National Science Foundation, the National
Endowment for the Humanities, the Department of Defense, and the National
Institutes of Health.
This grant application process is extremely competitive, with groups of the
country’s leading researchers writing detailed proposals which specify how
precious federal dollars will be spent. A large proportion of awarded grant
money is dedicated to training graduate students.
Graduate students are an essential part of the nation’s research labor force.
They are the workers who conduct the experiments, collect the data, and write
the software that keeps scientific progress moving forward. They investigative
how we communicate, they restore the lost heritage of our nation’s past, and
they help to educate others who are seeking higher education as teaching
assistants at colleges in all fifty states.
Training graduate students is expensive. They often require huge investments in
laboratory space and equipment, in addition to experiences that need to be
created for them in the classroom and in the field for them to achieve mastery
over their area of study. In addition to paying for these costs through grants,
universities also provide a stipend, usually less than $30,000 per year, to help
graduate students pay for their living expenses. The stipend is usually the only
take-home income that a graduate student earns while earning their doctorate
due to the high demands of their training.
In the past, only the stipend was taxed by the federal government as income,
however the current version of the House of Representative’s proposed Tax Cuts &
Jobs Act (H.R. 1) seeks to change that. The Tax Cuts & Jobs Act would add the
cost of doctoral training (paid for by the university through grants) to each
student’s individual income. The cost of training regularly exceeds $40,000, and
therefore H.R. 1 would increase many doctoral student’s tax bills to the point
where their stipend alone would not provide a living wage.
Therefore, let us return to the question asked at the beginning of this essay:
should graduate education be affordable for Americans? H.R. 1 would make it
extraordinarily difficult for those who are not independently wealthy to be
able to afford graduate school. Our nation is speckled with some of the greatest
educational and research centers to ever exist. These institutions are not
limited to elite coastal communities: Urbana-Champaign, Blacksburg, Tuscaloosa,
Lincoln, and Iowa City all host research departments that are the envy of the
world. Do we want to put these institutions out of reach after two centuries of
building them up for our mutual national benefit? The prominence and continued
success of America’s ability to produce new knowledge can only be guaranteed if
these institutions can continue to attract the best and brightest to their
graduate programs.
In an era where folks are doubting America’s future exceptionalism in the world,
the quality of our educational and research institutions is one area where we
are still truly number one. A great deal of credit for this continued
achievement belongs to our country’s graduate students, who have chosen to
dedicate years to their art or science in order to move our world forward and to
protect our country’s greatness. If you believe the great artistic works and
scientific technologies of this century should be created in the United States,
then please contact your Senator and ask them to vote NO to changes to the tax
code until graduate students are protected. If you’re unsure about how to
contact your Senator I encourage you to use 5calls.org
to help you get in touch. Future generations of researchers are counting on all
of us, so thank you for speaking up on their behalf!
