Graduate students merit aid
The potential negative impact on university graduate students is evidence of the misbegotten haste dominating the current congressional tax-reform agenda.
Lawmakers purportedly dedicated to the best interests of this country
shouldn’t be giving even remote consideration to a provision, contained within the tax plan, having the potential to inflict serious damage on graduate education, with that damage potentially extending to the nation as a whole.
The valuable benefits the United States derives from individuals motivated to pursue studies — and research — beyond undergraduate college work cannot be accurately quantified, but the positive benefits are magnanimous in scope, and the nation should in no way seek to diminish them.
If Congress is willing to dole out more than a trillion dollars for tax benefits for the rich, it ought to be committed to allowing to remain in place the financial foundation that has enabled many of the nation’s brightest individuals to continue their studies and become vital components of efforts to better America — and Americans’ lives.
Congress ought to be expanding research, not eroding it.
It’s troubling that there are federal lawmakers representing the Keystone State who are part of the congressional “erosion clique,” including the 9th District’s Bill Shuster and the 5th District’s Glenn Thompson.
They shouldn’t be allowing all the good they’ve done as members of the federal House of Representatives to be tarnished by a tax effort built so much on haste that it fails to properly consider potential for the short- and long-term education damage in question.
The opportunity to pursue graduate study and participate in research should not be limited to students of wealthy families. But that unwanted scenario is more likely to prevail if the tax proposal approved by the House ends up the law of the land.
The Senate’s approved proposal apparently wouldn’t necessarily produce that negative result, but that remains to be seen as the two legislative houses resolve the differences in their respective measures.
Members of Congress should heed the words of Penn State University President Eric Barron — words spoken similarly at universities across the nation.
“If the House tax bill becomes law, many students will likely not pursue graduate study because they would be forced to take on additional student debt,” said Barron, who indicated that PSU’s 4,000 graduate assistants and 400 graduate fellows would see their taxes go up an average of $2,000 under the House plan.
“By making graduate education more expensive, this bill would not only discourage the pursuit of advanced degrees, but could have negative impacts on research, innovation and other integral components of graduate education at Penn State and universities across the nation and ultimately harm U.S. competitiveness, as the pipeline for the nation’s intellectual capital is compromised.”
Penn State graduate students marched against the GOP-led plan on Nov. 29, and they and their fellow graduate students across the nation should continue their vocal opposition.
This proposed assault on higher education makes no sense — especially when one of the bases for that assault is to help lessen the tax obligations of millionaires and billionaires who could live luxuriously without the extra money the congressional tax bills would give them.
Sound judgment should rule the current tax-reform debate, not irresponsible haste.
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