This statement is true (yours):

> Only a small minority of lower class people ever go to grad school.

But so is this one (mine):

> A vast majority of graduate students are from low-income backgrounds.

However, this statement is totally false (yours):

> it’s a tax break that benefits the kids of upper middle class and wealthy families.

Many graduate students, especially those in STEM fields (80 - 90%), are poor international students. Their families are already taking on generations of debt in order to give their children a mere chance to emigrate to this country.

The schools don't want to/won't pay the higher stipends required to offset the tuition waiver taxes (for the minority of graduate students who get them), and they don't want to/won't give up the massive cash infusion coming from these students (who don't have waivers) already.

Given the choice between the two, they'll choose the latter (the cash cow) and throw the former (the best and brightest) out with the bathwater, if you'll permit me to mix my metaphors. In the long run, this outcome will be bad for the schools, and bad for the businesses who hire these students once they graduate.

Sources:

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/07/12/new-report-sh...

https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2017/10/11/foreign...

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/03/education/edlife/american...

You're simply wrong. Higher-income college students are far more likely to go to graduate school than lower-income students.

> The percentage of students enrolling in graduate school increases with family income. Among dependent 2007–08 four-year college graduates, 39 percent of those from families in the lowest income quartile, 42 percent from middle-income families, and 45 percent from the highest income quartile had enrolled in graduate school within four years of college graduation. [0]

It's also misleading for you to look only at figures for STEM fields, in which international students are much more highly represented than other fields. I'm not sure why you're using looking at STEM only and using that to prove your point. The NYTimes article you linked says it best:

> "in arts and humanities, the figure [of students which are international] was about 16 percent; in business, a little more than 18 percent."

Providing tax breaks for graduate school does disproportionately benefit the upper middle class and the wealthy.

[0] https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/86981/...

Depends on the field. Students from developing countries are usually not lower class, but, compared to Americans, have much lower income. In many fields, especially STEM ones that actually provide tutition waivers, these students make up significant chunk of the students. There is liberal arts, but tuition waivers are much more rare there.

I’m sure this is what the Trumpists were really after. He is not very friendly to immigrants, after all. And STEM doesn’t really mesh with make America great again mantra of bringing back low skilled manufacturing jobs.

Not to wade into the discussion about who makes what money (we need data, full stop) - but in humanities, students largely do not get the type of tuition waivers that are under discussion.

By ignoring STEM students, you're overlooking the people who would primarily be affected.

A vast majority of graduate students are not from low income backgrounds. Graduate students by definition already have a college degree, and statistically college graduates come from families that make substantially more than he average income.

You're making a poor assumption however. The college graduates that go on to pursue a graduate degree are not randomly selected.

Sure. But aren't they even more likely to be well-off? Are people who can afford to forgo getting a job for 4-5 years after getting their college degree more or less likely to be from a lower-income household?

I'm not certain, but to offer a counter argument, aren't the more wealthy students likely to be content to get a Bachelor's degree of an MBA and move into the workplace? Possibly using their connections to supplement their other qualifications?

What is the poor assumption that s/he is making?

Sorry to clarify, the poor assumption is that the fact that the people going to college being generally wealthier means that the people going to graduate school are generally wealthier. A uniform randomness would be required to determine which students choose to continue advancing which is not the case as those choosing to pursue a graduate degree are being influenced by other factors - how fast they need to begin acquiring income, how lucrative they think immediate employment may be, interests...

I always got the impression that the international students were from fairly well off families by the standards of their home country. After all, they can afford to pay full tuition, even after the exchange rate from currencies like the Chinese RMB.

Yup. The most likely outcome of the grad student changes in the House tax bill would be an even greater shift towards international students from well-off families.

I don't know that I'd say "overwhelmingly". I certainly wouldn't have been able to go to grad school under this system.

Do you know what "overwhelmingly" means? Your anecdote about a single person (you) being able to or not being able to afford college doesn't mean anything.

The other commenter's unsourced "overwhelmingly" claim is silly but so is yours.

Think of my comment as two separate statements. First, "overwhelmingly" is silly. Second, and more or less unrelated, it would have personally affected me. The second wasn't intended as support for the first.