Tax Bill Affecting Graduate Students

As some of you may already know, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act recently drafted by the US House of Representatives includes some provisions that negatively affect graduate students. Most pressing is a change to the tax code that could allow tuition waivers to be taxed as income; for an average domestic doctoral student at Brown filing singly, this would raise taxes owed from about $2,160 to about $11,650. The impact could be even greater for students in other situations, such as those with families or international students. Obviously, this would have a severely negative impact on graduate education, particularly at private institutions, and would make pursuing a graduate degree financially untenable for many. The bill also proposes changes to student loan deductions and education tax credits.

The bill is not finalized, however, and must go through many more steps before becoming law, which means that we have the opportunity to intervene. Regardless of your political inclinations or how you feel about the tax bill overall, we hope that you will join us in contacting members of Congress and impressing upon them the negative impact that these provisions will have on graduate education in America. The GSC Executive Board is contacting our Rhode Island Senators and Representatives, and we encourage you to do the same – including reaching out to representatives and senators from your home towns and states. We also encourage our many international students to make their voices heard, as residents of Rhode Island and members of the Brown community. We are attaching a template that we encourage you to use to contact your Senators and Representatives.