Dear Senators Booker (NJ), Menedez (NJ), and Toomey (PA)
Trump's Tax Plan = 20% Pay Cut for Grad Employees
Rutgers AAUP-AFT, which includes the nearly 1,700 graduate employees throughout the state of New Jersey, is writing to express our unequivocal opposition to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
The tax reform bill passed the house on November 16, pushing the repeal of the tax-free nature of tuition remissions. If this bill carries through the senate, graduate employees at Rutgers University will be taxed for tuition remission as early as January 2018, adding more than $3,000 to their taxes each year.This effectively cuts nearly 20% from the salaries of Rutgers graduate workers.
As the body representing graduate workers across all Rutgers campuses, we want to use the momentum built around this issue by graduate employee locals to expand the conversation. This bill not only implicates graduate workers, but all working people at universities who enjoy tuition remission benefits. We stand with the staff and faculty alike who receive tuition remission benefits through Rutgers and who will also be burdened with additional costs as a result of this new tax plan, eliminating the potential to pursue a degree here for themselves and/or for their children.
The work done here at Rutgers by our staff, faculty, and graduate workers is world renowned, and Rutgers employees deserve every benefit they have. However, this tax plan will make it extremely difficult for Rutgers University to remain the flagship university of our state if the very employees that make up this community are forced into untenable financial positions by our representatives.
That is why we are calling on you all today. This bill should have never passed and we ask that you vote to kill the bill on the senate floor next week.
Sincerely,
The TA/GA Steering Committee
of the Rutgers AAUP-AFT
&
Updates
Reached 1,000 supporters
November 21, 2017
November 16, 2017
I never imagined this conversation would reach so many people when I first put these words down. It is truly humbling to see such a collective response to a policy that threatens the stability of so many of us. This momentum belongs entirely to the community that stepped up to speak out.
Reached 100 supporters
November 14, 2017
137 Comments
As a Rutgers faculty member, I join Rutgers graduate employees in urging you to reject this bill, which will do enormous harm to higher education and advanced research in our state and across the country.
A PhD would have been unattainable for myself and many other students who are not independently wealthy were it not for tax-free tuition remission. Any tax policy that puts the greatest the burden on those least able to pay is unacceptable and a grave threat to American development and innovation.
I am already in the bottom 10% of Americans in terms of income. Especially in this are with a high cost of living, I am already on the edge of a living wage. This change would be a terrible blow financially that would push me down while I am working hard to contribute to science and society.
To be clear, tuition remission is a phantom benefit for graduate students. Ph.D. students don't pay tuition. This particular component of the bill punishes graduate work and will make graduate study inaccessible to nearly all Americans, limiting our research and innovation potential.
The effects of this tax plan should it be enacted would transform academia making it white and more privileged than it currently is. Congress should be working to eliminate barriers to diversity in science, not creating them.
Please protect the ability of lower and middle class Americans to pursue an advanced education. This bill would, without exaggeration, make that nearly impossible for many thousands of current graduate students in New Jersey alone.
This is a direct attack on our country's ability to produce an educated populace.
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Dear Senators Booker (NJ), Menedez (NJ), and Toomey (PA)
Trump's Tax Plan = 20% Pay Cut for Grad Employees
Rutgers AAUP-AFT, which includes the nearly 1,700 graduate employees throughout the state of New Jersey, is writing to express our unequivocal opposition to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
The tax reform bill passed the house on November 16, pushing the repeal of the tax-free nature of tuition remissions. If this bill carries through the senate, graduate employees at Rutgers University will be taxed for tuition remission as early as January 2018, adding more than $3,000 to their taxes each year.This effectively cuts nearly 20% from the salaries of Rutgers graduate workers.
As the body representing graduate workers across all Rutgers campuses, we want to use the momentum built around this issue by graduate employee locals to expand the conversation. This bill not only implicates graduate workers, but all working people at universities who enjoy tuition remission benefits. We stand with the staff and faculty alike who receive tuition remission benefits through Rutgers and who will also be burdened with additional costs as a result of this new tax plan, eliminating the potential to pursue a degree here for themselves and/or for their children.
The work done here at Rutgers by our staff, faculty, and graduate workers is world renowned, and Rutgers employees deserve every benefit they have. However, this tax plan will make it extremely difficult for Rutgers University to remain the flagship university of our state if the very employees that make up this community are forced into untenable financial positions by our representatives.
That is why we are calling on you all today. This bill should have never passed and we ask that you vote to kill the bill on the senate floor next week.
Sincerely,
The TA/GA Steering Committee
of the Rutgers AAUP-AFT
&
Updates
Reached 1,000 supporters
November 21, 2017
November 16, 2017
I never imagined this conversation would reach so many people when I first put these words down. It is truly humbling to see such a collective response to a policy that threatens the stability of so many of us. This momentum belongs entirely to the community that stepped up to speak out.
Reached 100 supporters
November 14, 2017
137 Comments
Tuition remission is not a purchase or an income. Students receiving tuition remission never see a cent of that money. The burden of any possible taxation should never fall to students just trying to make enough to live and continue their graduate work to further our nation's collective education.
As a Rutgers faculty member, I join Rutgers graduate employees in urging you to reject this bill, which will do enormous harm to higher education and advanced research in our state and across the country.
A PhD would have been unattainable for myself and many other students who are not independently wealthy were it not for tax-free tuition remission. Any tax policy that puts the greatest the burden on those least able to pay is unacceptable and a grave threat to American development and innovation.
I am already in the bottom 10% of Americans in terms of income. Especially in this are with a high cost of living, I am already on the edge of a living wage. This change would be a terrible blow financially that would push me down while I am working hard to contribute to science and society.
To be clear, tuition remission is a phantom benefit for graduate students. Ph.D. students don't pay tuition. This particular component of the bill punishes graduate work and will make graduate study inaccessible to nearly all Americans, limiting our research and innovation potential.
The effects of this tax plan should it be enacted would transform academia making it white and more privileged than it currently is. Congress should be working to eliminate barriers to diversity in science, not creating them.
Please protect the ability of lower and middle class Americans to pursue an advanced education. This bill would, without exaggeration, make that nearly impossible for many thousands of current graduate students in New Jersey alone.
This is a direct attack on our country's ability to produce an educated populace.
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Tuition remission is not a purchase or an income. Students receiving tuition remission never see a cent of that money. The burden of any possible taxation should never fall to students just trying to make enough to live and continue their graduate work to further our nation's collective education.