ISTOCK, WUTWHANFOTOFollowing the approval of a similar bill in the House earlier this month, the Senate Budget Committee approved a tax proposal Tuesday (November 28) that would have far-reaching effects on taxpayers across the country. As lawmakers continue deliberations, graduate students are becoming increasingly vocal with their concerns about how proposed changes within the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (H.R. 1) will affect their lives.
These include changes to student loan interest rates, tuition reduction, and education assistance programs, consolidation of tax credits, and elimination of debt forgiveness for tragic life events. But as most students now know from their newsfeeds and social media networks, the elimination of tuition waivers under the House (but not the Senate) version of the plan, resulting in the treatment of these funds as taxable income, may be the most alarming adjustment.
Numerous articles have been published in the past few weeks with varying tenors on the topic, but the message has mostly been this: Students are in trouble. Just how much trouble, however, has been a little fuzzy. So, we set out to consider a variety of scenarios using real tuition and income to ...
