Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Temple Student Strike Turns Ugly as School Ends Some Tuition Aid

phillymag.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 265 posts

Re: Temple Student Strike Turns Ugly as School Ends Some Tuition Aid

#201

Post by IG_Semmelweiss »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #175
akavi wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are companies not allowed to stop paying wages to striking employees? Or is it that tuition remission is viewed as distinct from wages legally?

Speaking from present experience: "tuition remission" is a sort of imaginary quantum payment. I call it that because first they "charge" you tuition, then they issue you a "remission". The result is that no money ever actually enters or leaves your bank account, and they write something in a database somewhere to say that you "paid tuition" and are therefore legally a "student" (eg: legal to treat as a student, put u…

that's not correct to say.

There is such a thing as noncash compensation. And that's part of total compensation.

If the govt has any inkling that you are taking payments in other than cash, they want to know (and tax) it too.

Re: Temple Student Strike Turns Ugly as School Ends Some Tuition Aid

#202

Post by IG_Semmelweiss »

thwayunion wrote: post #188
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been explicitly told by a tax accountant that I cannot. If a third party makes a payment to one of their own offices, even presuming that money exists at all to begin with, I can't claim it on my taxes as income or a credit.

The person you're responding to is correct in very specific cases like the GRFP; certain fellowships function differently. You're correct in the case of 90+% of grad students.

If this income is not in your W2, then this is very-murky-grey-area-danger-zone stuff.

Students and Universities both could be accused of underreporting income or tax witholdings.

I suspect there are armies of education lawyers that vetted this, but in any other industry, this is simply a no-go zone. You report what you get and what you pay as comp, cash and noncash.

Re: Temple Student Strike Turns Ugly as School Ends Some Tuition Aid

#203

Post by IG_Semmelweiss »

LAC-Tech wrote: post #107

As a father of a baby I wonder what higher education is going to be in 20 years time. I see a fairly long, gradual decline in prestige and effectiveness of universities - at least in the English speaking world - going back a couple of decades at this point. More bureaucratic, more corporate, filled with ever more political extremists. In my jurisdiction at least it's largely used as a pathway for migrants to get a pe…

I agree.

certainly calls into question 529 investments today.

Re: Temple Student Strike Turns Ugly as School Ends Some Tuition Aid

#204

Post by IG_Semmelweiss »

ro_bit wrote: post #3

For reference, during the recent UC-wide strike, student strikers were allowed to keep their tuition remission (however, the university is clawing back paychecks for striking workers, as they are legally allowed to do. We had strike pay anyway, so it's fine)

OK, but by whom and why?

This is important, because if it depended on administrators deciding to love their grad students again (vs mandated by judge, vs required by law), that cannot be the basis for certainty into the future.

Re: Temple Student Strike Turns Ugly as School Ends Some Tuition Aid

#205

Post by s1artibartfast »

nitwit005 wrote: post #124
ETH_start wrote: post #97

There is no good reason at all for society to accept and institutionalize the sense of entitlement that unionizing workers have. You don't get any moral right to extra-contractual benefits just because you agree to an employment contract. Almost all of the problems society has emanate from the ideological narratives of victimhood (e.g. the superficially plausible but fundamentally fallacious notion that parties with…

A free market means people can always walk off the job. They can do it in an organized way, as that just requires talking to each other. It's just a matter of bargaining power in the end. The, so called, fair negotiations you speak of.

Agreed. Compensation should depend on bargaining power. The problem and challenge is when striking workers actually dont have it.

What if Temple is 100% OK with irreconcilable differences with the striking workers.

Re: Temple Student Strike Turns Ugly as School Ends Some Tuition Aid

#206

Post by IG_Semmelweiss »

loeg wrote: post #122
legitster wrote: post #84

I'm a bit confused - striking workers don't normally retain pay and benefits. I don't understand what would make graduate students any different? If they were being punished just for organizing or demonstrating it would probably be a different matter. But I think the University probably has good legal standing here to say "we're just not compensating them for work they didn't do".

Grad student "tuition" isn't pay. It's a made up number transferred from the university to itself.

I'd love to see what IRS determination led to that conclusion.

Because in every other industry, noncash comp, is still taxable compensation

Re: Temple Student Strike Turns Ugly as School Ends Some Tuition Aid

#207

Post by djbusby »

IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #192
sonofhans wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, Mr. Bright, usually I think you’ve got your head screwed on pretty well, but this is a religious statement, not a matter of fact. 1. Find me a free market. Otherwise we’re just going to devolve into “no true Scotsman.” The USA, for instance, is light years from a free market in basically every respect. 2. In a truly free market the way to maximize profits is to create and maintain a monopoly. Nearly every large…

2) Monopolies usually form because of government failure, not because of free markets. What you state is true, but its only true because because its a means to an end: It is substantially easier to manipulate government into currying you favor, than it is to build innovation that sticks. The former is just dollars. The latter is dollars + sweat + luck. 1) OK. I challenge you to find a free market that has produced a…

1) "black market" drugs is pretty close to free-market. But it also gets "help" from the gov; being illegal creates interesting market forces.

Also, the players are trying to corner the market in their territory (create a monopoly)

Re: Temple Student Strike Turns Ugly as School Ends Some Tuition Aid

#208

Post by thwayunion »

IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #202
thwayunion wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The person you're responding to is correct in very specific cases like the GRFP; certain fellowships function differently. You're correct in the case of 90+% of grad students.

If this income is not in your W2, then this is very-murky-grey-area-danger-zone stuff. Students and Universities both could be accused of underreporting income or tax witholdings. I suspect there are armies of education lawyers that vetted this, but in any other industry, this is simply a no-go zone. You report what you get and what you pay as comp, cash and noncash.

Grad students are Very Special in tax code. For example: guess how much grad students and their universities pay in FICA taxes for graduate stipends (can be north of $40K; typically 8% of gross for employee and 8% of gross for employer)? $0.00.

Tuition remissions in particular definitely do not show up on your W-2.

Now, to the question in this thread. If you choose to report tuition as income, you might be able to do that in certain cases, but it's probably because you have some strange reason for wanting to report a higher gross income. I can't even begin think of any reason why that might be. So, murky and likely to cause an audit? Maybe. But then the gov is complaining about getting extra $$$, unless your situation is really fucking weird.

Mind you, this is exactly why I find situations like this so reprehensible. Universities get tons of breaks in how they treat grad student labor. For universities to turn around around and fuck grad students like this, on top of the insulting wages, is beyond the pale.

Re: Temple Student Strike Turns Ugly as School Ends Some Tuition Aid

#209

Post by klyrs »

charlieflowers wrote: post #127
BitwiseFool wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"This decision is intended to benefit Temple the business, not the Temple the university." More and more it seems like academics are just a front for running a hedge fund - one that gets very favorite tax treatment. Growing the endowment is the most important thing in the minds of the leadership.

Yep. After all, where on Earth does all the tuition money actually go? The buildings are nice and there are way too many overpaid administrators, but even still that can't possibly account for all the $$$ flowing in.

The whole idea behind endowments used to be that they could maintain the institution through tough times. But nowadays, there's an expectation that endowments should continue to grow during a recession, even if that means cutting the institution to the bone. And administration hierarchies keep getting deeper; they're never on the chopping block.

Re: Temple Student Strike Turns Ugly as School Ends Some Tuition Aid

#210

Post by ETH_start »

nitwit005 wrote: post #124
ETH_start wrote: post #97

There is no good reason at all for society to accept and institutionalize the sense of entitlement that unionizing workers have. You don't get any moral right to extra-contractual benefits just because you agree to an employment contract. Almost all of the problems society has emanate from the ideological narratives of victimhood (e.g. the superficially plausible but fundamentally fallacious notion that parties with…

A free market means people can always walk off the job. They can do it in an organized way, as that just requires talking to each other. It's just a matter of bargaining power in the end. The, so called, fair negotiations you speak of.

The problem is not people walking away en masse from a job. The problem is laws that suppress the free market to favor unionization, like prohibiting employers from offering yellow dog contracts.
Post reply on HN