Why Won't Our Universities Protect Us?

I know that the image of a doctoral student at an Ivy League institution is not one that is particularly sympathetic. I am fully aware of what much of the general public thinks of us privileged, coddled children of elites toiling away on obscure, irrelevant topics. There are too many Ph.D.s, lawyers, and other over-educated people, we are often told. But those of us who study education and countless other fields are often dedicated to the public interest, underfunded, and small in number. My cohort consists of only three students. The Republican tax plan would be devastating to us. It would require us to pay taxes on tuition money that we never see.

As a former high school educator, I took a more than 50% pay cut to pursue a Ph.D. I am the first in my family to pursue a doctorate (my father has a B.A., and my mother is a Registered Nurse). I attended traditional public schools K-12. The decision to return to school at age 30, move to a new city, and forgo many of the perks I enjoyed (like contributing to a retirement account) was not one that I made lightly. But I felt okay knowing that as a single person I could live just fine on $25,000 in an affordable city like Philadelphia (compared to Boston, San Francisco, New York, for example).

I did not plan, of course, for the three battles that have defined my time as a doctoral student: unionization, free speech, and now tax reform. Universities have been spending much of their time on the first two issues, often taking stances that protect their own legal interests and liabilities over that of students. The proposed Republican tax reform smartly (from a conservative political perspective) attacks two pillars of the most well-funded colleges: the obscene multi-billion dollar endowments and the doctoral student tuition waiver. It is no accident that these measures target a population perceived to be the most educated and the most politically liberal.

The current tax proposal would cut my current take-home stipend by roughly 25% to $19,000. Would I make it work? You sure as hell bet I would I am committed to finishing this degree, and I have done more with less. I could take out more loans (yes, I have plenty already). But what sense is there in this plan, in punishing those who seek to better themselves and society through low-paying research?

Worse, the plan lays a political trap for college administrators seeking to protect their endowments. If you use your lobbying influence in Washington to protect the endowment while sacrificing tuition waivers in a political horse-trade, we will remember.

Please protect us when we are at our most vulnerable. We are the graduate students who come up with the ideas for the global marketplace, cures for cancer, policies to improve the world, and the knowledge that serves us all. We only ask to continue to pay taxes on what we take home, not the tuition money that we never see. We will graduate soon, and we will pay it back tenfold.