Casey Williams
If the current tax bill becomes law, I’ll likely quit grad school. Many of my colleagues have told me they’ll do the same.
That’s why graduate student workers are still fighting the legislation, despite the passage of a Senate tax bill on Friday. On Tuesday, eight graduate students, including two from Duke, went to House Speaker Paul Ryan’s office in Washington. They risked arrest to protest a provision in the House bill that would dramatically increase taxes on grad students. And on Wednesday, graduate students across the country are calling on their colleagues and supporters to call their elected representatives and demand they drop the provision.
Like nearly 150,000 graduate students across the country, I receive a tuition waiver in exchange for labor I provide the university. I never see this money. Instead, the university pays this money to itself to cover my tuition. It’s not subject to taxation under current U.S. tax code. These tax-exempt waivers are what make it possible for working- and middle-class people like me to pursue a graduate education. Without them, graduate school would be even more of what it already largely is: an exclusive club for the wealthy and well-connected.
The House version of the tax plan would negate the value of these tuition waivers by reclassifying them as income. In many cases, this would increase graduate students’ taxable (but not actual) income by tens of thousands of dollars a year, and require students — most of whom make less than $20,000 a year — to pay taxes on sums well-above their take-home pay.
As a teaching assistant at Duke, I make about $28,000 a year, and pay around $2,200 in taxes. The university waives my tuition, which it figures is worth about $53,000 a year. If I had to pay taxes on the total amount the university says I’m receiving — about $81,000 — I’d be be required to pay, at a minimum, around $8,500 in federal taxes each year, and quite possibly much more. When you add state taxes, that number could easily jump to over $12,000. By even the most conservative calculation, the House plan would require me to fork over nearly half of my income in taxes. In a nightmare scenario, I’d be paying in taxes almost as much as I earn.
Either way, I’d be living near or below the poverty line.
Like most of my colleagues, I’m not exactly swimming in cash as it is. And as far as graduate students go, I’m relatively lucky. I work at a private university, and I don’t have kids, credit card debt, or any serious medical conditions. For graduate students with children — or with other major expenses — the tax plan would be truly devastating. Graduate education is already inaccessible to many. Taxing tuition waivers will only further restrict access to those lucky few who do not need to work to live.
The GOP tax plan wouldn’t only hurt graduate students, however. Increasing the tax burden on graduate workers would hasten the collapse of a higher education system weakened by mounting student loan debt, public funding cuts, and efforts by universities like Duke to stop graduate workers from unionizing. As universities turn to adjunct labor to keep costs down, decent-paying academic jobs are disappearing. If forced to confront tax bills we cannot pay, graduate students like me will have every reason to see academia as a raw deal, and abandon the work we love.
The consequences of a grad student exodus would be disastrous for higher education. Colleges and universities rely on graduate students to conduct research and teach undergraduates, whose tuition money keeps these institutions afloat. And they rely, as well, on a steady stream of newly-minted PhDs to fill the ranks of their faculty. Without a pool of graduate student labor, or new professors, it’s hard to imagine how universities would continue to function.
As the House and Senate bills work their way through the reconciliation process, much remains uncertain. But no matter how you look at it, Congress is asking some of the most precarious workers in the country to subsidize tax breaks for wealthy people and corporations. Graduate student unions, like the one we formed last year at Duke, are fighting to stop the grad tax hike from becoming law. And while some universities have voiced opposition to the bill, institutions like Duke can and should abolition tuition make sure their graduate workers aren’t driven into poverty or out of their programs.
About the Author
Casey Williams is a second-year PhD student in the Literature Program at Duke University.
