Student breaks at risk
In the minds of many Americans, the fact that the Republican House tax reform plan – a foolish ploy on many fronts – contains provisions counting graduate school tuition waivers as taxable income might seem an esoteric bit of fine print. It’s not.
Here is what Barmak Nasirian, an official with the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, had to say about the change: “This could literally end STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) research in the United States, for starters. The graduate students you’re talking about may be your kid’s future doctors, maybe the person who’s going to address the climate change challenge, maybe the one who designs the next drone that’s going to protect us.”
The change apparently isn’t part of the Senate’s package. Obviously, the best alternative would be to scuttle the entire reform plan and turn over the mission of tax code changes to a bipartisan group of moderates from both parties. But that’s not likely to happen. For now, the best that can be hoped is for this provision to be cut out of the final “reform” package likely to be passed by Congress before year’s end.
This story was originally published November 19, 2017 at 9:00 AM with the headline "Student breaks at risk."