When Congress approved the first revision of the tax code in a generation in late December, graduate students around the country breathed a sigh of relief.
Gone from the final bill was a provision that would have levied a tax on tuition waivers graduate students receive. The provision would have affected about 145,000 students who receive stipends and whose tuition is waived in exchange for their work in laboratories and as teaching assistants. Faculty and students alike pointed out that it could discourage students from pursuing graduate degrees. The issue was of such concern that Yale President Peter Salovey issued a statement, as Yale officials lobbied legislators.
“National policy should lower, not raise, the hurdles that graduate students must overcome in completing their degrees,” Salovey said.
Students in the biomedical sciences at Yale would have faced taxes on $41,000 in tuition. They currently pay taxes on their stipends, which range from $30,000 to $35,000, and health insurance, about $2,000. Those who did the math calculated an increase in their tax bills from about $3,000 to $10,000.
“People know that they can’t afford an extra $7,000 in taxes. For us it would be a really big hit to have to pay these extra taxes,” said Sarah Smaga, a graduate student in her fifth year at Yale. She studies proteins that could counteract HIV infection and is on track to defend her thesis within a year. She spoke with Yale Medicine before the fate of the tax waiver provision was clear, but emphasized the dangers it posed to graduate education. “A lot of people are reconsidering whether they would be able to stay in graduate school.”
Along with students around the country, Smaga and colleagues at Yale mobilized against the proposal. Because Connecticut is a blue state whose Congressional delegation was on record against the proposal, Yale students opted not to walk out of classes in protest, as students did in other states. Instead, they organized phone banks at the medical campus, Bass Library, Science Hill, and West Campus, where students, especially from red states, called their legislators to oppose the plan. “We had eight scripts, depending on whether we were calling Republicans, Democrats, senators, or representatives,” Smaga said. The students made about 100 calls, she said.
National policy should lower, not raise, the hurdles that graduate students must overcome in completing their degrees.
Peter Salovey
They also wrote to their hometown newspapers to place letters and op-eds. Smaga’s letter appeared in her hometown paper, the Detroit Free Press.
For Smaga, who is nearing the end of her studies, the tax on tuition would have affected her for at most a year. Edward Courchaine, a student in his fourth year of studies in biochemistry, said students would have had to examine how far along they were in their studies and whether it would be worth the effort to continue.
“I’m worried about people who are in the middle right now,” he said. “If you are in that spot and suddenly told that if you want to continue this, then your standard of living is going to drop, that is a reason for some people to throw in the towel and move on. I also worry about how this will affect the diversity of people who pursue STEM degrees. At some point we are going to start losing people to other career paths.”
Students were not alone in their concerns. Anthony J. Koleske, Ph.D., professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry and of neuroscience, directs the Yale Combined Program in the Biological and Biomedical Sciences, which has about 525 students. He stressed the key role graduate students play in the scientific enterprise.
“Students are absolutely the intellectual and creative driving force of what we do,” Koleske said. “They are the ones that come up with new creative ideas and implement them. If that goes away … it fundamentally reduces the quality and impact of our science.”