Agreed – as the spouse of a humanities prof, I don’t know a single humanities grad student or professor who was not fully funded through their program. Not getting funded is basically a soft rejection from the program, a way to say “no” without actually having to say it.
^^The top schools fully fund everyone. But there are plenty of not-so-top schools that not so generous.
I’m getting nervous. There is apparently a deal today, but no word on the tuition waivers that I can find so far.
Time to call Susan Collins. 
I.E. waivers will not be taxed, tentatively.
Source: Sahil Kapur’s twitter feed.
Please seek other sources for confirmation
Any word on tuition benefits from employer university?
latest update on tax plan https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-13/gop-eyes-cut-for-top-end-21-corporate-rate-tax-debate-update
This is a relief.
Do we know if the excise tax on colleges with large endowments is in this version?
I happened to be in the GSI (TA) office when word came that (as of now, supposedly) the screw the grads tax isn’t part of the reconciled bill. There was visible and audible relief from all the grad students.
Apparently they’ve also decided to keep the deduction for medical expenses. The proposal to eliminate it was perhaps the only part of the original House tax bill that was crueler than the tax on Ph.D. students.
Student loan deduction also staying.
And Marco Rubio says he won’t vote it as now.
I’m guessing there’s going to be mad negotiations.
So it seems that they’ve put back a lot of the controversial “claw backs”. And they did it by just raising the corporate rate from 20 to 21? Why on earth were they so hell-bent on so many unpopular changes for 1%? Or are there other changes to pay for those give-backs?
^ because till last Friday the President insisted on 20% and nothing else. Then on Friday he said he’d be okay with 22%… So that gives a little bit more leeway.
NY Times reports they’re still looking for ways to pay for all the additional tax cuts for the wealthy and the middle-class deductions they’ve just added back in. One possibility is to have middle-class tax cuts expire even sooner than originally called for. It’s a cynical game. They’ll say, “Don’t worry, a later Congress will extend the middle-class tax cuts.” But that makes the expiration date on those tax cuts just a dishonest accounting gimmick that radically understates the fiscal impact of the proposal to get around the $1.5 trillion cap. Or, if a later Congress decides it can’t extend the middle-class tax cuts because the deficit impact is just too great, it puts the lie to the promise being made now that the cuts will be made permanent later.
^And if that later Congress is Democrat, then it’s obviously all their fault.
If the party in power, remains in power, they will be back to tax tuition waivers, and anything else they can find, to pay for this massive giveaway to the top 1%
They are only taxing schools with endowments of $500,000 per student or more…which have an enrollment of more than I think…500 students. In all…there are about 30 colleges affected…and they ARE those super wealthy schools.
I don’t happen to agree with this. It’s private money.