{"id":1454,"date":"2017-11-18T14:01:26","date_gmt":"2017-11-18T22:01:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/?p=1454"},"modified":"2017-11-18T14:01:26","modified_gmt":"2017-11-18T22:01:26","slug":"grad-school-is-tough-enough-already","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/2017\/11\/18\/grad-school-is-tough-enough-already\/","title":{"rendered":"Grad School is tough enough already"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Republican House of Representatives&#8217; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chronicle.com\/article\/How-the-House-GOP-Tax-Plan\/241824\">tax plan would transform &#8220;tough enough&#8221; into *impossible* for tens of thousands of graduate students<\/a> who receive fellowships that allow them to study &#8220;for free.&#8221; (Of course these students also usually teach as well, and those in the sciences do publishable research.)<\/p>\n<p>Like a lot of my friends back in the day, I entered grad school with very little money in my checking account. (My savings account? Ha!) My Stanford University fellowship waived my tuition (about $60K in today&#8217;s dollars) and provided me with a small stipend (about $13K in today&#8217;s dollars). If my fellowship became a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eschatonblog.com\/2017\/11\/lol-well-just-say-its-free-irs-will.html#disqus_thread\">taxable benefit<\/a>, I would have owed more than the equivalent of $8K\/year or so in taxes to the IRS, in effect forcing me to choose between food and shelter &#8211; that is, preventing me from attending graduate school all together. (Loans would not have been a smart option for a Humanities student like myself; I had no expectation of getting a well-paying job before I went completely bald.)<\/p>\n<p>Eviscerating the population of American grad students wouldn&#8217;t just wipe out generations of young scholars. It would also destroy the main mission of large universities &#8211; teaching. No tuition tax break = no T.A.s, no teachers of freshman composition, etc.<\/p>\n<p>I cannot think of a simpler, more perfect way of destroying the standing of United States&#8217; higher education.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right\"><em>cross-posted at <a href=\"http:\/\/basil.ca\">basil.ca<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Republican House of Representatives&#8217; tax plan would transform &#8220;tough enough&#8221; into *impossible* for tens of thousands of graduate students who receive fellowships that allow them to study &#8220;for free.&#8221; (Of course these students also usually teach as well, and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/2017\/11\/18\/grad-school-is-tough-enough-already\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[42,43],"class_list":["post-1454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-roberts-posts","tag-for-educators","tag-for-students"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1454\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}