Low-Income College Students Are Being Taxed Like Trust-Fund Babies

Re:Low-Income College Students Are Being Taxed Like Trust-Fu... by 4NDR10D on Friday May 17, 2019 @07:07PM (#19944446)

It seems you may be unfamiliar with STEM Ph.D programs. The way it works is professors "sponsor" a graduate student to do reserach for them. The student will either work on existing projects started within that professor's lab or start their own related projects. The goal of this research is to contribute novel material into scientific literature.

It's also usually NOT a rich parent. For example a big funder is NSF or NIH, these institutions grant money to labs with the expectation that they will perform research.

Don't think of it as being paid to go to class, think of it as a job where you work 40 hours a week (usually way more) doing reserach, then go to class, then on top of that help teach those classes through being a TA.

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Re:Low-Income College Students Are Being Taxed Like Trust-Fu... by 6gvONxR4sf7o on Friday May 17, 2019 @07:22PM (#19944524)

Those cases really should count as earned income then.

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Re:Low-Income College Students Are Being Taxed Like Trust-Fu... by lutorm on Friday May 17, 2019 @07:43PM (#19944623)

Indeed, and I'm surprised it wouldn't be. When I was a graduate student we got tuition waivers but beyond that it was a salary for being a teaching or research assistant. TAs were definitely considered employees, because they were also union-represented.

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Re:Low-Income College Students Are Being Taxed Like Trust-Fu... by arkades on Friday May 17, 2019 @07:38PM (#19944600)

That’s the standard, not the exception, for PhDs. Which is why it’s not really “those cases” that should be earned income - its the entire category.

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