GOP tax bill would tax tuition waivers for grad students

Re:GOP tax bill would tax tuition waivers for grad students by lovich on Friday November 03, 2017 @09:57PM (#15623430)

I would agree that this is possibly and even highly probably not the place to start, but if taking a few thousand dollars from graduate students stops them from going to graduate school right now when they can not afford it, I think that is a good affect. If we believe in the market at all, there are far too many graduate students or they would be commanding a higher price that covered the cost of their "production" for lack of a better word.

Additionally I understand that the funding didn't come back, but tuition is not the only dial. I have seen what seems like every school increase their administrators overhead, continue to fund unprofitable sports programs, and add luxury amenities to their campus to entice students away from other universities. Schools could cut back, but they don't. They have an unlimited trough of money and no reason to ever cut back.

At this point they are acting as corporations and not institutes of higher learning. If they are acting like a corporation then we should treat them like one and stop dumping money into unprofitable ventures. I will point out that we have other industries that are getting money dumped into them that don't need it that should lose the government funding first, like half the industries on this list[1]

There are better fights to be had, but decreasing demand for education that is unprofitable to obtain seems like a good step

[1]https://blogs-images.forbes.com/timworstall/files/2017/01/jo...

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Re:GOP tax bill would tax tuition waivers for grad students by Fomite on Friday November 03, 2017 @11:58PM (#15623693)

It's a good effect in the same way that a startup struggling getting rid of the coffee machine is a good effect - it's technically trimming costs, but in a way that's a drop in the bucket, and doesn't even begin to address the underlying issues.

As for "Schools could cut back, but they don't" that will come as a surprise to my frozen salary, and every department in my university being expected to cut their budget for the next three years.

While still being expected to admit the same if not more students, support the programs to help keep them enrolled, and compete for more grant funding.

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Re:GOP tax bill would tax tuition waivers for grad students by lovich on Saturday November 04, 2017 @01:02AM (#15623884)

Based on what I've read you are a professor, correct? Your salary being frozen isn't what I am talking about. When I went to college we had a 12% raise in tuition one year, and then spent several hundred thousand on a party for the new Dean we got next year. Those are the type of costs I am talking about

Edit: sports teams as well. Our basketball team was bringing in more money than they spent so that's fine for the university. However they also spent millions on our football team who lost money year after year. Why are universities in a position where they can increase tuition by 12% in a single year and then still dump money into a losing sports team for the prestige factor? The universities do not seem to be price concious at all except when it comes to professor compensation

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Re:GOP tax bill would tax tuition waivers for grad students by Fomite on Saturday November 04, 2017 @03:27AM (#15624138)

They're extremely price conscious in a number of ways.

Do you have a citation for the several hundred thousand dollar party?

Sports teams are...difficult. I dislike how much money goes to them, but they're a complex thing to value, as both student recruitment and alumni donations are entangled with the athletic program.

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