The tax plan introduced by Republicans in the U.S. Congress last week would have drastic effects on graduate education in the United States, according to reports at The Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Ed. [UPDATE: The rest of the original post is below, however, as commenters Genevieve and Michael E. Lopez point out (and as I acknowledge in a comment), is based on an error. (Though see the green text below for why, though I was mistaken, the bottom line about the tuition waivers being taxed under the proposal may nonetheless be correct.) The section of the proposal from which I quoted appears to be about how to calculate one’s income for determining eligibility for an education tax credit (I believe it’s the “Lifetime Learning Credit” in the existing code and the “American Opportunity Tax Credit” in the proposal), and not about determining one’s taxable income.  I apologize for the error. As I mentioned in the OP, a few readers pointed me towards sources on this, including this piece in The Chronicle of Higher Education, which says, “The plan would also tax the tuition waivers that many graduate students receive when they work as teaching assistants or researchers,” and also this widely shared Twitter thread from a professor at UT Austin, which says “GOP tax bill would tax tuition wavers for grad students.” I thought I should fact-check these claims, and so I searched through to the tax code and the Republican proposal to see what they said about tuition. I found language that appeared to explain these claims, and wrote up the post. This was a mistake: tax law is complicated and can be written in a confusing manner. Though I included disclaimers in my original post, I should have checked with an expert. Lesson learned. The question remains as to whether there is some other part of the proposal that explains the claims about tuition waivers being taxed. If there is, I did not find it, but I also did not spend much more time today looking. If you find anything relevant, please share it in the comments. Thank you.] [UPDATE 2: Commenters believe that the relevant bit is “striking subsection (d) of section 117,” listed on p. 96 of the … Continue reading Tax Proposal Would Make Getting a PhD in the US Very Expensive (Multiple Updates)