@3scoutsmom Thank you.
A GOP tax bill, if approved, would require those receiving Pell Grants to repay those grants if they do not graduate within 6 years. See the below link to the Chronicle of Higher Education article about this:
http://www.chronicle.com/article/GOP-Bill-Would-Force-Students/241813?cid=wcontentlist_hp_latest
Wow they seriously left no stone unturned to pay for these corporate tax cuts.
Are you freaking kidding me?
Why even both trying to educate poor kids at this rate? You’re never going anywhere in the GOP-created world so we might as well just get you working at walmart and getting on welfare at 5 years old instead of kindergarten.
8-| >:P 
More winning!
well, to be fair, such increase is on families earning~$100k…
Just give everybody all A’s. Students can take twice as many courses and graduate in half the time. Problem solved. The sooner these kids graduate college, the sooner they can start working at the Walmart.
@bluebayou I think it’s trendy to whine how much work TAs do for a dismal pay. Adjuncts don’t get paid much. In my area, it’s $2,000 for semester for a three credit course. TAs get paid better than that. I don’t know what the loads are in other places. In my kid’s program, they get paid that much or more in a month for teaching about the same amount. They do have to do some extra work but so do adjuncts. Adjuncts have to prepare for class. That could take at least as much as time spent in class. If all universities care is saving money, they would hire adjuncts not grad students. Universities can make tuition waiver tuition scholarship and pay stipends through TA or RA. They won’t lose students and can still subject them to “forced labor”.
Nobody said adjuncts get a great deal. Guess what? Many of them were TAs at one point – you can’t be an adjunct at most schools without at least a Masters, and many have PhDs. But adjuncts aren’t affected directly by the tax bill tuition changes – that is a red herring, and a different thread to discuss how awful the adjunct life is.
What red herring? I am saying TAs are getting paid market price not bargain price. As such, universities don’t need to tie tuition remission to TAship. In other words, universities could call tuition waiver tuition scholarship without losing anything. Pray tell me, where is the red herring?
Yes, they were and they got paid better when they were in grad school than out of it with a degree. In other words, TAs are doing well. They get generous stipends, not being paid dollar for hour. If they are getting paid for hour, they would get adjuncts’ pay or less since they don’t have a degree and less experience.
I just finished listening to Wednesday’s episode of Pod Save America and they focused much of their criticism of the tax bill on the blow that would be dealt to grad students. I just can’t believe these people have the nerve to call themselves public servants. So very many flaws in this legislation.
They spent an entire hour on tuition? I am sure there will be a work around to this. My main objection to the proposal is the repeal of estate tax without also removing step up in cost basis and the high threshold of 39.6% bracket and a few others. Tuition seems like a minor issue for which a solution will be found.
If a solution is so easy, then they should take it out of the bill. I have not heard a solution that won’t bring a tax evasion charge so far. Nor any way to supplement the income of the grad students so corporations and private jet owners & companies can have a break.
You keep saying this with absolutely no evidence…
If there were legal workarounds, then there would have been no reason to include it in the bill.
To be logically consistent? If a grad student next door pays their tuition with after tax money, tuition waiver should be included in income in theory. The idea was, I thought, to include all perks you get in the income. I like the idea in principle. It’s leveling the playing field. It’s easier to compare if everything is laid out in $ instead of $x + y benefits vs. $a + b benefits. Just give them money and let them spend as they see it fit instead of twisting around tax codes.
One interesting proposal is to increase the 401k catchup provision amount from $6000 to $9000 but any such catchup contributions must be Roth 401k (after tax).
Did a very simple tax proposal calculator at marketwatch.com which showed under both House and Senate proposals, our taxes were lower, at least initially. Switching to standard deduction instead of itemizing resulted in higher taxable income, but tax brackets were lower. I still have many reservations, but this was interesting.