I don t see the stipend as income, he said. I m not putting it away, it s buying the groceries. Some administrators say that graduate students will have to pay only a small tax once they have subtracted the standard deduction and personal exemption plus whatever tuition, fees and other costs they may legally deduct from their fellowship awards. Considering our incomes, the new taxation is probably bringing in really minimal amounts of money to the government, but is making a big difference for us, she said. All of sudden, that s a big bite out of most of our budgets, he said.
Many students rely on outside aid to help finance their education.
Some institutions have increased their stipends to compensate for the tax bite, but others are not able to do so. At Georgetown, for example, student aid levels are linked to faculty salaries, Melia said, and cannot be increased unilaterally. NSF Grants Adjusted NSF has also increased the annual value of its fellowships, according to Terence Porter, director of NSF s Research Career Development Division. The Council of Graduate Schools, which lobbied unsuccessfully against several provisions in the new tax code, is hoping that pending legislation to correct technical problems will ensure that remitted tuition fees remain tax-exempt. Several grad students conceded that their dismay is tempered by the knowledge that, in Grober s words, we ve had it so good for all these years.