HYDERABAD: The tax bill passed by the US Senate on Saturday will affect the savings of Indian students studying in US universities. Worried parents and students think otherwise. The new tax system makes pursuing higher education in America costlier by up to $10,000 a year. The bill would be more burdensome for married research scholars.
Educational experts say that most students who get tuition waivers are from the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields. Ms Geeta Prasad, 22, a student at Penn State University, says, “Waived tuition fee is not money in the bank. Therefore, taxing the same is unreasonable. Also, we work many hours a week as laboratory researchers to earn that waiver because studies abroad are expensive. Most graduate students make less than $30,000 per year with their stipend and now they will be left with no savings.”
PhD scholars who receive stipends are taxed on the stipend but adding the tuition waiver to the amount increases the taxable income too much. Members of the NRI parents association in Telangana have also raised concerns about the Republican tax bill as the cost of education has increased three-fold.
