NLRB rules graduate students are employees | Hacker News Reader

NLRB rules graduate students are employees

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213 pointslvs141 comments

This has always made sense to me looking at it from a 1099 vs W2 point of view. (Those are the independent contractor vs employee tax forms in the US.

Grad students who teach can't determine their own schedule, they can't accept/reject individual tasks, they don't have multiple customers, and they are receiving training throughout.

Ref: https://www.learnvest.com/knowledge-center/the-difference-be...

My only surprise is how long it took this to happen.

I'd agree that IRS rules could be relevant, though the 1099/W2 distinction isn't the one I'd look to. The question there is "how focused is the service provider on providing services to just this one recipient (i.e., the putative employer)?"

That question is orthogonal to the question of whether one is primarily a student or primarily a worker (either employee or IC—it doesn't matter), which is more relevant to the recent NLRB ruling.

The Supreme Court addressed this issue in 2011 in the Mayo Clinic case [1]. They held that medical residents do not qualify for the "student exemption" to FICA (a certain type of payroll withholding). At first glance, this seems to support the NLRB ruling regarding grad students, insofar as it indicates that people who work and learn can be classified as primarily workers.

However, I think it might ultimately undermine the NLRB decision. In the Mayo Clinic case, the Supreme Court basically said: there are people who are students who get paid, and there's a FICA exemption for them, but medical residents are a different kind of beast—they're more like workers.

This line of reasoning implies that students who do qualify for the FICA exemption—presumably including grad students who receive stipends—are more like students than workers in the view of the Supreme Court. That would mean that they would be less likely to be owed the right to unionize, which is a protection granted to workers, not students.

Caveats: The Mayo Clinic case was decided under a specific provision of tax law (not labor law), though it did involve the general question of "what is a student?". Also, I am now a "recovering lawyer", no longer in practice.

1: http://www.clhe.org/marketplaceofideas/uncategorized/supreme...

Many of the comments so far revolve around whether graduate students are students or not, as if being a student and an employee are somehow mutually exclusive or the fact that graduate students also take classes mean they must be equivalent to undergrads and ought to be given the same treatment. Clearly this is not the case. Acquiring the specialized knowledge that a PhD entails requires tremendous sacrifice (and, in the case of PhDs hoping to become professors, it often ends in tremendous disappointment). Universities have two primary functions - conducting research and teaching. This is the job of the university. Undergraduates don't have the specialized knowledge required to teach or to contribute substantially to research. Graduate students, however, do both of these jobs. Indeed, they are absolutely essential to the functioning of the university. And while the average time to completion for science and engineering doctorates hovers around 5 years, it's not uncommon to find humanities PhDs who take 8 years or more to complete their dissertations. This isn't because they're lazy. This is because the competition for academic posts is brutal, the expertise expected of them is vast, and, more to the point, because they're busy working. Universities are subjecting students to increasingly unjustifiable tuitions and pocketing massive profits couched as expanded endowments. Pretending like graduate students are just really smart, really old, really slow-to-catch-on interns and not a part of their extremely lucrative business operations just adds insult to injury.

>Undergraduates don't have the specialized knowledge required to teach or to contribute substantially to research. Graduate students, however, do both of these jobs.

I don't think grad/undergrad is the right distinction here. I was employed by my undergrad-only liberal arts alma-mater as a teaching assistant and research assistant. And the college employed many of my classmates in other positions. We weren't exploited like many graduated students are, but another institution could have treated us worse.

> college employed many of my classmates in other positions

And how many classmates were not employed? Far more. So yes, the grad/undergrad distinction is valid. Undergrads are often assigned boring research jobs and are paid less.

> Undergrads are often assigned boring research jobs and are paid less.

I agree paid less, but disagree about "boring" research jobs. It probably depends on your school and your major. Nuclear Engineering at NC State got me to research molecular dynamics GPU techniques (this was around 2010) to simulate rare events (such as radiation-resistant material interactions) in order to get real-world simulation times to the order of milliseconds, which is a whopping 1000x speedup from the usual microseconds. I got access to the school's supercomputers just like any other physics grad.

My work later moved to the CASL (Consortium for Advanced Simulation of LWRs[0]) umbrella, and I was not the only one. None of the topics were boring, and the general impression I got from the department head was that undergrads were as capable but just requiring slightly more guidance.

It was a great funnel for getting undergrads to continue their research to grad school and ultimately to a PhD. I did not continue, but still have several friends that are pursuing their PhDs.

[0] http://www.casl.gov/

To this point and the point below about undergrads and specialized knowledge: yes, you're absolutely right. I should not have said that undergrads don't have the specialized knowledge to teach. Plenty of undergrads make great TAs, and teaching assistants are a critical part of the learning process at most universities. What I should have said is that courses are not taught by (the role of the teacher is held by) undergraduates but by professors and graduate students, who are responsible for the planning, content, and instruction, and for the TAs that assist them. The only point I'm trying to make is that graduate students are given substantial full-time-equivalent jobs and that there place and role in the university ought to reflect this.

In University of Washington it is fairly common for advanced undergrads to be employed as TAs/RAs. They are considered Academic Student Employees just like grad students and are represented by the union.

Agreed. My friends who were at Brown University about 50 years ago were undergraduate TAs in computer science. It was a prestigious position, and they still exist in every course there.

About time! Now we just need to get rid of the rules, that the work done by the students is owned by the university..

Which for most students doesn't matter, but I know that in computer engineering a number of my friends intentionally avoided things that might have commercial significance because they wanted to keep the ideas for themselves. Getting a MS/PhD is enough of a financial ding (probably on the order of $200-$400k) that the insult of both paying the school _AND_ giving them the resulting work is just to much.

In practice people I know who've built startups on top of tech they built at universities haven't run into problems. A common strategy is to open-source any code you might want to later use commercially, as a way of throwing it over the fence. Your startup can then use it on whatever terms you open-sourced it under (probably BSD/MIT, if you want to give your later self maximum flexibility). Granted, so can anyone else. But usually the research-prototype code itself isn't enough to build a competitor, and the common case for research code open-sourced by a grad student in some random .tar.gz code dump on their website (or worse, included as a file appendix to their thesis), is that nobody else will even so much as look at it.

The university may have to approve this, but at major CS departments approving students to open-source the code that goes with their thesis is pretty rubber-stamp, at least if it's self-contained.

What were Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina positions at the University of Illinois' NCSA when developing Mosaic? Even the name Mozilla points to the acrimony over that dispute over intellectual property.

Intellectual property generated in other fields does not benefit from this kind of liberal license loop-hole, unfortunately. We cannot open-source all applied science according to the current rules.

Areas where universities are aggressive about patenting definitely have other problems, yeah. Fortunately in CS academia, software patents are relatively uncommon. Not unheard of, but only a small percentage of non-hardware theses end up involved in a patent filing.

> About time! Now we just need to get rid of the rules, that the work done by the students is owned by the university..

If you want to start your own commercial enterprise, don't use non-profit, tax exempt equipment and facilities to do it.

But what if they paid their "student activity/ and computer fee"?

Not really relevant -- most of the computer systems used to actually carry out research are paid for with grant money of some flavor. The university computing systems are more incidental

This is why the main research building at UCSF is allegedly called Genentech Hall - a bunch of researchers ran off with IP generated at UCSF to start Genentech, and the university sued successfully and used the money to build that building.

Of course if I had my druthers none of this would be property, either the university's or the student's or the professor's. The idea of someone owning an idea is bonkers, especially when the ideas they claim to own are built on stuff you were just taught. You gilded the tip of a long chain of human creation you were lucky enough to be handed, now the world fucking owes you? It's absurdly arrogant.

You gilded the tip of [i.e., added a valuable new link to] a long chain [of valuable independent links each created by some individual or small group of individuals] of human creation that the world was lucky enough to be handed, and now the world thinks you fucking owed it that? That's absurdly arrogant.

If you create a thing in the world that did not exist before, and other people find it valuable, why should you not be able to reap some of that value? Why is the world more entitled to the thing you made, the insight you had, and the work you put in, than you are?

Because what you are trading on is 99.9% your position of privilege and 0.1% your work. I've had plenty of insights and spent my life around the smartest person in the world for decades. None of us are so great. We are handed most of what we make and turn a few bolts.

If somebody pours the foundation, somebody else frames the walls, a bunch of other people hang the drywall and run the wires and hook up the plumbing, and then I come along and lay the carpet, I'm obviously an idiot if I try to take credit for the entire house. But I certainly deserve to be paid for laying the carpet. How much work was done on the house before I got there has nothing to do with whether or not I, in my turn, spent my time and knowledge and effort to make something that was valuable too.

Incidentally, did you really mean to say that you spent your life around the smartest person in the world? If so, well, I'm skeptical but also curious who you think the smartest person in the world is.

No, I meant people. I believe people deserve to be paid because we all want to eat, live, etc., and right now this means a wage. I don't believe people deserve a patent monopoly.

If you're an employee all of your work output is work-for-hire and de jure owned by your employer. Can't have it both ways.

Speaking from academic computer science, I have never heard of anyone making the decision not to work on something for this reason--perhaps because if an idea could immediately be turned into a successful company, it's probably not good research! And most (all?) CS PhD programs (which include an MS in passing in the USA) guarantee full funding for a number of years and most successful students are funded the whole time.

Sets up for the (in my opinion) far more interesting debate: are college sports players employees?

Yes. In the college marketing department.

I thought the Northwestern University Football Team[1] case was in part addressing that or making thing more complicated? Not saying it's settled or whatnot, just that maybe it's at play too.

[1] http://www.si.com/college-football/2015/08/17/northwestern-f...

Does this similarly apply to medical fellowships?

There's a weirdness that residents are considered employees, but if you want to go into a specialty requiring a fellowship, you're back in the "student" category.

I am sure that this will be an unpopular opinion but I think this is wrong. Graduate students are students. They are paying to be in school. They may be paying for it with money gained from the University but they are still students. Should an undergrad that is on a university scholarship be considered an employee too? How are the economic realities of grad school any different from undergrad? If you can't afford to go to school, you have a few choices: debt, poverty, or don't go to school. If you have a family, you have to factor them into your choice too.

All this being said, I went to graduate school and received a master's degree in Civil Engineering. I was able to be fully funded through the research that I performed and did not have to pay a dime in tuition. I also received a stipend that, if I was very frugal, was enough to pay my bills and feed myself. During this time I lived with four roommates and road my bike as much as I could to save money.

Another item of note is that in Montana, where I got my degree, engineers registered with the State are bared from joining unions of any kind. Even as a grad student, I was registered as an EI, therefore I would not be eligible to join the grad student union.

An undergraduate going to school on a university scholarship isn't doing work (such as laboratory research or being a TA or teaching intro classes); these graduate students are.

When the undergrads at my alma mater were TAs or research assistants or whatever, they were absolutely considered part-time employees of the university, in addition to their student status. If they were doing full time work, forty hours of work a week, they would have been considered full time employees. Why should those employees not be subject to the same employment protections afforded to the non-student employees?

It might actually depend on the school . . . and maybe even the grad program . . .

I don't think anyone said that graduate students are not students. They just said that if they're teaching and researching for universities, that they are employees, and have employee rights.

Is a university scholarship conditional on your performance? Are you producing anything that's of value to your university as a grad student? Even if you can't draw a clear line between post-grad and grad, that doesn't mean there isn't a line being crossed. A grad student will be working on a thesis for 6 months to a year, a Phd for 4 years! That distinction alone is worth making sure that these people are getting their times worth and their due rights during that time.

I see your point. I am sure that my views are heavily influenced by my experience which was good. I know that I was not supposed to work over 20 hours per week. It did not matter if that was all research or a combination of research and teaching a class. At those hours I was a part-time employee so there was not need for the university to extend any benefits to me. I also made sure that I only worked 20 hours a week. I did not feel any pressure to put in more hours than that.

My wife is currently working on a PhD and she is also only expected to work 20 hours a week. It is very much about the individual program and the department/field.

Wow, I've literally never heard of a PhD where you were only expected to work 20 hours/week. I'd say 50-60 is closer to the norm, especially once you're done with your coursework (usually a year or two into a 5-7 year long PhD).

If you don't mind, what field(s) are you two in?

I can only make sense of what he meant assuming it is 20h/week on top of the "study time" purely for the purpose of the PhD. But then that seems like a lot, I wonder what's in the 20h...

Yes, 20 hours of research time. Her studying time/course load is all on her own time.

In some countries (most universities in France AFAIK for example), "research time" is all of what makes your PhD. You don't have any course (it is changing a little, but seems quite superficially though).

That's because you're required to have a Master's to start a PhD in France, whereas in the US you get into a PhD program right after undergrad. So in the US, you end up taking some classes your first year or two, then you typically take the qualification exam, and then you start writing your dissertation.

I am a traffic engineer and she is a hydraulics engineer. Both fields fall under Civil Engineering. Her degree is only a 3 year program (she already has a master's).

I only get PAID for working 20 hours/week.

This article only covers graduate students who also work for the university. I don't think that's normal for most graduate students.

Don't most graduate students fund themselves using TA/RA budget lines where they are employed by the university? It's the norm everywhere I've seen.

I didn't think so, but maybe I'm wrong. I would have thought that working as a TA or RA would be a big waste of time while you're trying to do good research and complete your PhD.

In Computer Science grad students are often paid by the university to perform research e.g. research fellows (RF) or research assistants (RA). This research helps them complete their PhD but it helps the University in terms of grant funding and prestige/influence. It is often mutually beneficial but it is clearly work.

In many (most?) cases, the research that the RA is "assisting" on is actually their dissertation research. It would be pretty uncommon to work on a totally unrelated project during your RA time.

Also, many universities require a few semesters of TAing, even if the student is fully funded. It's certainly free labor for the school, but it did help me understand what I was doing....

> I was able to be fully funded through the research that I performed

You performed work that benefited the institution, in exchange for goods and services. This is employment.

I get what you're saying, and you're not totally wrong. Most importantly, the research is part of your studies so it's not totally fair to label it as 100% employment. But it's also not 100% studies, since the university is getting material benefits from it.

You can argue that the employment angle is an accounting trick. Your research was part of your degree, and you didn't pay tuition and received a stipend. Most people's research is considered half-time employment, for which they are paid an amount roughly equal to the cost of tuition plus living expenses. These are two perspectives on situations that nearly identical on the ground, but are regulated differently. Tax regulations for most, but it sounds like you were also affected by labor regulations.

For my part, I was employed by my college as an undergrad as part of my financial aid package. It only counted for like 5% of my financial aid, because it was near-minimum-wage administrative office work. So I would argue that graduate students are not being treated differently from undergrads. The labor of graduate students has a higher value, and the mix of their financial aid packages reflect this, but the essential rules are the same.

In the humanities, 75% of courses are taught by grad students and adjuncts. I think the split between them is about half and half.

An overwhelming percentage of the actual work of higher education is done by grad students and contingent faculty.

In engineering, at least at the school I attended, very few classes were taught directly by TA/grad students. Again, just a difference in department/field.

This varies by school. In my school, from what I saw, 0% of humanities courses were taught by grad students. I only had an adjunct professor once and it was for a CS class. He wasn't a grad student either.

There is a big difference between a Master's level grad student and a PhD level grad student.

I got a Master's in CS, and I mainly took classes and wrote a single thesis that received no funding. I did this at a smaller state (e.g., public) university and I paid for it myself. I was a student. (Side note: I paid for this myself by working the entire time that I pursued my bachelor's and master's degrees, and graduated without any student loans.)

I am in my 4th year now (after completing the Master's) working on my PhD in CS at an R1 research (private) university where I receive a stipend. I do not pay any tuition. I have not taken a class in 2 years, and I will not take a class this year, either. I teach classes. I grade homework and tests. I perform research funded by grants (for organizations who reap the benefits of my research). In my mind, I am not a student; I am an employee (making less than market value). In practice, how is what I am currently doing any different than an employee?

As someone who has been a grad student on both levels, I disagree with your blanket statement. Perhaps some grad students do nothing but take classes, but that is decidedly not the case in any PhD STEM field. I have too many friends in other PhD STEM programs that relate the same experience.

>I am an employee (making less than market value).

Are you accounting for your tuition as part of your benefits for working for the university? I am not trying to be argumentative, I am genuinely curious. In Civil Engineering the grad students, both master's and PhD are under market value even when the tuition is accounted for.

It's hard to put a market price on something that no one pays for.

These "cost accounting" transactions where schools both charge you and pay you and then net it out are kind of silly. IMO only the net should matter.

If a school "costs" $70k/year but 95% of students get a $50k/year scholarship, are the students really making $50k/year of income? Of course not. The school costs $20k/year; $70 and $50 are both pure fiction.

We should be looking at who actually ends up writing the check and who ends up depositing it, not the stories they tell along the way.

In the last couple years of the PhD, the only class I take is dissertation credit, which is in essence just doing research for my advisor.

"Tuition" in this case is arguably just an administrative device by which the university siphons some money off of my advisor's grants in exchange for the right to employ me as a research assistant.

I guess the other side of the argument is that tuition represents the value of access to my advisor (which apparently fluctuates seasonally, cratering to zero during the summer...), and my advisor('s grant) pays me for my labor, and I (my advisor's grant...) pay(s) the university for access to for my advisor.

NOTE: I'm not attacking you, although I will use strong language in my answer. I understand the question and the reason for asking it, but I'm answering honestly, with the emotion that this question evokes. Most of us hear the term "tuition credit" and roll our eyes, because it is as empty as a politician's promise.

The tuition "value" is an old salesman technique. "This car is worth this much, but for you we're going to cut that price in half... isn't that a great value?"

It's like saying, "You should thank me because I haven't punched you lately."

I think it's laughable. The way the funding works is this: My advisor writes a grant proposal to some agency. If it is approved, the university gets a 1/3 of the money off the top. The rest goes towards paying for the expenses (servers, software, tools, and my stipend). The school makes money because I'm here, and then they have the gall to say that I receive a tuition "credit" when I'm not taking classes in the first place. Rather, the school reaps the benefits of my labor in terms of immediate financial reward as well as claims of intellectual property over my developments and my publications.

So the university makes money (that they would not get if I were not there doing research). Then they tell me that they would have charged me $X to attend, but out of the goodness of their heart they are going to waive this tuition, and I should consider it as part of my compensation so that I feel better about being paid less than market value. You tell me: should I feel warm and fuzzy about this?

"Tuition credit" is an empty number that they make up. Implying that it is a benefit to me is, frankly, insulting to my intelligence.

The only reason that I am working towards a PhD is because I love teaching, and you have to have a doctorate before you can teach at the university level (although there are exceptions, they are growing exceedingly rare).

Thanks for the very frank response. I agree with you completely. My wife magically became an in-state student when it came time for the University to waive her tuition. funny how that works.

I believe Texas used to grant in state tuition to anyone with funded scholarships over a certain amount. I don't know about your wife's car but that could be the reason why she's in state?

When I was a grad student the only tuition benefits I got were (a) I was allowed to pay in-state tuition instead of out-of-state and (b) I didn't have to pay fees for things like the Athletic department; this ended up being about 25% cheaper than in-state undergrad. On paper, (a) was a huge benefit, but considering I lived there for seven years and paid state and local taxes the whole time, I'm not inclined to be too generous with that accounting.

> Graduate students are students.

Yes, they are. This case is not about that, as it is not in dispute.

> They are paying to be in school.

Indeed, they are. And, as such, the are, to that extent, customers of the school, and legally treated as such.

> They may be paying for it with money gained from the University but they are still students.

Here's where the issue is. Yes, they are still students. But, when they are paid by the university for work which benefits the university (such as work as teaching and research assistants), they are also employees.

> Should an undergrad that is on a university scholarship be considered an employee too?

An undergrad on a university (academic, sports are potentially a different issue and the subject of some active controversy right now) scholarship is generally not doing work that benefits the university. OTOH, an undergraduate paid by the university as a tutor (undergrads generally aren't employed as TAs) or research assistant (a role in which undergrads are not uncommonly employed on campus) is, uncontroversially, an employee.

> How are the economic realities of grad school any different from undergrad?

The only difference is that graduate school programs often bundle paid work of the type that would, uncontroversially, make anyone else an employee as part of the requirements of the program. This ruling simply says that bundling a requirement to do paid work on behalf of the university into the requirements of an academic program doesn't magically transform that work into a non-employment relationship.

> Graduate students are students. >> Yes, they are. This case is not about that, as it is not in dispute.

I do actually think this is disputable. As a late stage PhD candidate, I'm not sure that what I do for a living looks anything like "studying". I and my colleagues work on research problems with variable amounts of input from our advisors. We typically don't take classes after 2 years. I work 9-9 6 days a week on building experimental setups and tackling scientific questions that will be beneficial to both my employer (more papers + more grants = more overhead money for the University and more research funding for my advisor) and to my career. Yes, academia doesn't have a commercial output, but what I do isn't that dissimilar to what being a data/research scientist at a small company would do.

People (successfully) pursuing a PhD are almost by definition not "studying" anything; they're advancing the state of the art in their field. To me calling them students seems like a mechanism to depress salaries.

they aren't mutually exclusive. you can be a student (matriculated in classes, studying under the direction of professors) and an employee (teaching classes, assisting in research) at the same time.

My take is that this means that graduate students who have "assistantships" are students and employees. And just like undergrads who have "work-study" jobs at the university, they should be eligible for the protections that come with labor law. An undergraduate scholarship is not comparable because it does not have a work requirement (or when they do have a requirement, it's a separately compensated thing, and the scholarship is not direct compensation for the work).

> Graduate students are students. They are paying to be in school. They may be paying for it with money gained from the University but they are still students. Should an undergrad that is on a university scholarship be considered an employee too?

It depends on what they're doing. If they're expected to help with the teaching, instead of doing their own research, they're absolutely employees.

If they're purely doing research, then I agree this shouldn't be covered by the unionization.

In the life sciences you're never really doing "your own research." The PI has the grant, usually tells you what to do, oversees your results, and puts his/her name in the final spot on the publication. Yet that is "purely doing research."

> They are paying to be in school. They may be paying for it with money gained from the University but they are still students.

Seems like some funny-business accounting to me, especially since AFAICT 90%+ Ph.D. students are fully funded.

It's like if you said instead of making 200k [made up number] from working for Facebook, I'm making 300k, but paying 100k for "experience".

> How are the economic realities of grad school any different from undergrad?

Because Ph.D. students almost always have school as their primary income, and undergrads (usually) pay for school and even if they don't pay, are usually supported by their parents or by other jobs. It's very very rare for an undergrad scholarship to pay you enough to live independently.

Also, undergrads don't have a "boss" pressuring them to produce more.

> If you can't afford to go to school, you have a few choices: debt, poverty, or don't go to school.

There is no such thing as not being able to afford to get a Ph.D., unless you have external expenses like a mortgage or needing to support family members. Ph.D.s are funded. Talking about not being able to afford a Ph.D. is like talking about not being able to afford to work for Facebook.

>AFAICT 90%+ Ph.D. students are fully funded

For STEM (or at least a sizable subset thereof).

For the humanities and social sciences, it's significantly less prevalent. See, e.g. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/01/phd-prog...

Most universities have limits on the number of hours undergraduates can work, and federal work study also limits the number of hours weekly. Graduate students have no such institutional protection. Nearly all undergrads are allowed to remain on their parents health insurance, or are provided health insurance by the university student health. Graduate students often have to purchase their own insurance and are too old to remain on parental plans. Treating graduate students and postdocs as students, rather than workers, also means that many of these people don't receive any kind of institutional retirement planning until they're 30+ years old.

So what? So if I work at a McDonald's, do I lose my protections as an employee there simply by using some of my income to buy some hamburgers from them, too?

The fact that I'm a customer too doesn't stop me from being an employee simultaneously.

But could McDonald's pay you below minimum wage because the free hamburger you got at lunch was worth $1 an hour?

Well, in many states a restaurant doesn't have to pay minimum wage as long as tips make up the difference. And it certainly is legal to charge restaurant employees for food (it's common to give a discount, and/or offer some items for free).

Granted, McDonald's employees aren't tipped, and unless somebody eats an incredible amount, their food bill won't cut into their paycheck all that much, so McDonald's isn't able to really lower its labor cost all that much. But you could see something similar to the hypothetical at a much classier restaurant.

But by law at the classier restaurant, they have to pay minimum wage.

If minimum wage is $8 an hour and the server has a base wage of $4 an hour.. by law, if they had no tips - they would need to be compensated to go up to minimum wage.

No protection like this for PhD students

Yes, exactly my point. Therefore why should grad students be any different? Is there anything in the labor laws that specifically mentions scientific research and hamburgers and different rules for the two?

Graduate students are students. Instructors are employees. A graduate student who is teaching a course is both a student and an employee.

Seems simple enough to me.

Interesting that nobody has commented on what this will likely result in - fewer grad students. If this is a good or a bad thing depends on your point of view.

Edit. Stupid typo :)

Wouldn't fewer grad students lead to fewer professors and less income for universities? Why would administrators accept that?

Yes :)

I did day it depended on your point of view. As a grad student less competition is good - if you are part of those exploiting grad students then not so good.

I hope you realize that in addition to being bad for those who exploit grad students, it is also bad for the marginal grad student who is no longer going to be able to go to grad school. For a lot of us foreigners, grad school in the US is essentially our only ticket to a life in the first world. So I implore you to consider the impact of a policy that results in fewer grad students on the marginal ones - typically foreigners or minorities or females in male heavy fields.

Does grad school qualify you for a different visa? As far as I know, a bachelor's is sufficient for a TN or H1-B.

At least in science/engineering: not really. Faculty positions are saturated, only one in three PhDs will get hired as an assistant professor, let alone receive tenure. One could argue that the number of graduate students is hugely inflated, since they're such cheap labor.

That's not the mechanism I'm considering. I was under the impression that most researching professors needed lots of grad students in order to get grants, and they needed grants in order to exist?

Yes it would tend to reduce demand for professors, but if there was fewer professors the grant success rate would be higher. Less competition for grant funding should have a positive influence on the quality of science as people should feel under less pressure to rush out results.

The current academic system is a Ponzi scheme that has to end at some stage and it might as well be now.

I guess I thought this was common. Maybe this development is private universities only? Where I went to school (Michigan) many (most IIRC) of the grad students were in the union: http://www.geo3550.org/

College football players, however, are not. The NLRB decided that one last year.

Right, because for the schools with the biggest sports programs, those programs are _serious_ cash cows. Sharing that with the students would be way bad! In some states, the head coach is the _highest paid public employee_.

I haven't seen this in the comments so far, and admittedly I'm not so familiar with the issues at stake in the university context.... still I'll mention it...

I suspect that opposition to this is the increase of cost and employment related regulatory burden for universities. Much of the discussion I'm seeing is whether or not certain students qualify for employment status (and presumably the benefits that come with that status). However, will not treating grad students as employees reduce the opportunities available for grad students? Usually when labor costs increased like this marginal positions are eliminated. Seems like if research positions are more expensive, research opportunities correspondingly have to be reduce.

Sure, the next shoe to drop is spend more tax money on research (given the dependency of many universities on the public treasury), and the one after that is tax more/borrow more... but even if that happens over time, the cost increase seems much more immediate. (Yes, you could raise fees and tuition, but in today's environment that would also lead to demands for greater tax expenditure.)

Anyway, curious if anyone is thinking about the other side of the equation.

The same argument can be made of any employee of any company. If we did away with some employee rights, the company would save money.

Here in the UK this problem is clearly solved -- if you teach, you are an employee.

You could argue that in today's environment graduate students are artificially under-priced, creating incentive for universities to use them as a cheap form of labor while training more than the job market can support.

>I suspect that opposition to this is the increase of cost and employment related regulatory burden for universities.

Heaven forbid we have actual administrative work for the bloated administrative departments to do!

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-11-21/the-troubl...

A very similar issue is just now coming up for discussion in the Country-wide Labor Court in Israel:

The question is whether Graduate Students, who get a monthtly stipend and have the obligations of an employee essentially (and who used to be recognized as employees) are indeed employees, despite the university's refusal to recognize them as such.

Here is some background material in English: https://app.box.com/s/osnf6xfqgqgvmnat6ldq

I'm involved in the proceedings, having been the vice-chairperson of the Graduate Union at the university in question (the Technion). Whoever is interested in more details (including the official court rulings, briefs, affidavits etc.), or in collaboration in writing something on these matters is welcome to write me at eyalroz at technion dot ac dot il .

In some states and university systems, grad students have been unionized and treated as employees for decades. So while this is a big change for some universities, it won't have a significant effect on others. I wouldn't expect this ruling to have a seismic effect on academia as a whole.

Do most graduate students receive a W-2 or a 1099 at tax time?

W-2.

Those on federal fellowships (NSF, DOD, DOE) receive neither, but must still pay federal and state income tax.

And no, the dollars are not eligible for Roth IRA contributions. Sen. Warren tried to fix this earlier in the year (unsuccessfully, so far)

Not just federal fellowships but private and even departmental fellowships as well. Makes for a big surprise tax season when you realize you should have paid estimated taxes.

Yes but those can and do vary in their tax status, with some just treated as a source of your stipend compensation (i.e. W-2).

The government doesn't really know about when you were paid though, so you're unlikely to get hit with penalties if you do forget to pay the estimated tax.

They don't vary in the taxable status. Any[1] income you receive is taxable. The IRS doesn't care if it is a "fellowship", a "stipend", or "wages" - or if your school considers you a student or an employee - if you got income, it needs to be reported. And if you don't get a W2 (and withholding), it is a big pain to deal with the estimated taxes. You only get leeway for failing to pay estimated taxes for your first year. After that, you're supposed to know that you owe taxes and can (and will) be hit with penalties. The timing issues only come into play with "seasonal" or farm work... for these purposes, the IRS will assume you're paid on a regular basis, and thus owe estimated taxes on a regular basis.

It makes it really fun when you and your spouse are both grad students, and have to deal with that twice.

[1] Okay, not everything, but for the purposes of this discussion, yes.

Yes, they do. Bizarrely, I know of two people with an NSF GRF at different institutions, one who receives a W-2 and one who does not. They both receive departmental "fellowships".

There is more to "tax status" than whether you must pay income tax. There are payroll taxes, Roth IRA-eligibility, etc.

It can still be taxable income without a W-2.

Agreed! That is not in dispute. The question is whether tax status of income is wholly determined by whether the income is considered "taxable income". In the bizarro world of the IRS, the answer is no !

Yes, I believe generally full-time students are exempt from payroll taxes when paid by the same institution they are students at.

I've been on fellowships where I got a W2 (and taxes withheld), and others where I was paid a stipend and I had to pay estimated taxes myself. My point is - just because a "fellowship" income is not reported via a W2 doesn't mean one doesn't have to pay taxes on it. But, it's all taxable income as far as the IRS is concerned.

Yes, but my larger point here was that "taxable income" ==/==> "taxable compensation". That is, there is strictly more to "tax status" of income than whether it is taxable income.

For more, read Pub 970. It's really quite complicated than whether you pay taxes on the income or not.

> They don't vary in the taxable status. Any[1] income you receive is taxable

Not all graduate stipend (fellowship, etc.) income is taxable, but the part that comes from work (as well as any amount not used for certain purposes, even if it doesn't come from work) done as a condition of the stipend (fellowship, etc.) is taxable:

https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc421.html

I had a grant-funded summer internship at a military institute. They gave me a 1099, with all the money filled in to a box that indicated I didn't owe tax. Got hit with self-employment taxes and a penalty two years after. Pretty sure I fit the requirements for W2 and they should have paid but I'm not about to report the military to the IRS or sue them.

> I'm not about to report the military to the IRS or sue them.

Suing them is not a good idea, but why not report them? It's not like retribution will come your way and it could be interesting, if not better (as in "less contradictory") for future people in your position.

At least on the NSF GRFP, and at least in my department at CMU, I still received W-2s, and federal deductions happened normally as per my W-4. (The fellowship funding went through the dept and I was paid by CMU.) Maybe my department is an outlier, though shrug

Also, some states treat graduate stipends specially. In Pennsylvania, the stipend is exempt from state and local income tax.

I wouldn't say it is an outlier, but I know numerous people with GRFPs in both situations. I used to think that it was better to receive it as W-2 income. Now, with Social Security looking less certain 30 years from now, I wonder who really is in the better position.

> Now, with Social Security looking less certain 30 years from now, I wonder who really is in the better position.

I'm new to the U.S. tax system. What do you mean by that? Isn't tax mandatory? I mean, either way you're going to have to pay up, be it every month or when tax filing time comes around.

I'm actually applying for the GRFP this year, but I'm not sure how my university handles the funds.

[ The following is not tax advice. ]

Stipends are generally considered "awards" and not "wages", so Social Security and Medicare taxes are not withheld. There's no free lunch, of course, because each quarter that those taxes are not withheld are quarters that don't accrue the "credits" needed to qualify for Social Security benefits. This could be an issue for someone who, for example, became permanently disabled at a young age. Most people, of course, will work enough years after graduate school that they will qualify for Social Security benefits, but it is something to consider.

I think it's standard at this point for universities to not withhold any tax from stipends (or the stipend portion of a disbursement to a graduate student if they are paid from multiple sources). Of course, income is income, whether it's "earned income" or not: so it's not like there isn't a tax liability just because the university doesn't withhold tax.

Note that all this is even more complicated for foreign nationals, for whom some combination of state and federal taxes may actually be withheld depending on the specific tax treaty that applies, the visa status of the student and current IRS policy.

> There's no free lunch, of course, because each quarter that those taxes are not withheld are quarters that don't accrue the "credits" needed to qualify for Social Security benefits. This could be an issue for someone who, for example, became permanently disabled at a young age. Most people, of course, will work enough years after graduate school that they will qualify for Social Security benefits, but it is something to consider.

Also, unlike Medicare, Social Security qualification isn't binary, your actual benefits are based on your wage-index-adjusted lifetime SS-taxed earnings, so even if you qualify, the period of not contributing means lower benefits. (Now, if you've also had enough contributions to max out your benefit level, that doesn't matter, but that's a smaller share of people than those that will merely qualify for SS through post-graduation work.)

Not universally true -- I know students on NDSEG fellowships (i.e. DoD) receive a 1099. I can't speak to the other fellowships though, and I don't get any deduction/withholding done for me, so I have to pay estimated quarterly.

And funds that come through my university do get a W-2 come tax time.

It's utterly bizarre in that it varies from institution to institution. I am on a DOE CSGF and we receive /nothing/, just a letter stating what funding we received in a given year.

I received a NDSEG as well and my research showed up a lack of homogeneity in how each school handles things.

"Utterly bizarre" captures a lot of my feelings about science funding and the graduate student research mill, yeah

The presence or absence of tax forms, or which tax form is provided, makes surprisingly little difference to whether someone is legally considered an employee. The guidelines the IRS uses are multi-factor and weight heavily around things like how much control is exercised over someone's work, when they work, how they work, etc.

Isn't that more the employee/independent contractor distinction?

Couldn't contractors unionize if they liked?

I did, but I wasn't an employee. Nonetheless, there was an HR department for the lab I worked at, and they were responsible for me. It's a mess.

The tax form wouldn't matter because, if they were misclassified, they'd receive the wrong form. Someone who is supposed to be an employee, but is misclassified as a contractor is still going to get a 1099.

I didn't while working on my PhD at Brown. They were actively hands-off about the tax implications of a stipend, telling new students nothing, and if asked, saying that it was the students' responsibility to figure it out. Difficult enough for me as a US citizen, probably hell for a foreign student on a visa.

It's not clear that this ruling would force Brown and others to give W-2s or 1099s, but I hope it does because fuck them for ignoring students' legal needs.

I find this very interesting. I'm currently a grad student at Brown, and I receive a W-2. I'm a Math PhD, and I teach a class each semester. I'm not sure how this would be different for others whose stipends come from grants or other sources of funding.

My experience was 8 years ago in the CS department and I did not teach.

I did my PhD in Norway, where PhD students are considered employees. However, the university is foot-deep in have-my-cake-and-eat-it-too land.

We had department heads, even heads of faculty, tell us in front of a hundred students that yes, you are expected to work more than the amount specified by law and your official contract. And no, you will not be paid overtime. And yes, you have to fill out a form saying when you will take your legally-mandated five weeks of holidays. But oh, no, we don't want you to actually take all those weeks as holidays, and no, you can't get a student bus card either, you're employees!

Only good that came out of it for me was a bag full of ammo whenever someone in admin complained that I hadn't filled out some stupid paperwork or whatever. A short crass email pointing out their blatantly illegal public statements, together with the words "or I'll contact my union's free lawyer service" shut them up quicker than contact cement.

I think in France it is more on the "best of both-side" in the sense that you're employee and student (you get a student card, with the associated benefit). I can have changed in the recent years though.

I'm sure details vary between countries and even universities. But for me, and I think essentially everyone, a fundamental part of being a PhD student is having to work long hours outside the applicable working time regulations. What is the point of promoting a group to employee status when everyone knows this group will be regularly violating the employee rights law (whether US, UK, EU etc.)?

For one, in France (as I remember...) it implies that the PhD is considered as "professional experience" (i.e. if you work for the government later you start as if you have 3y experience in the field), you contribute for you retirement, and you have a legal right to 5 weeks paid vacation.

> It's not clear that this ruling would force Brown and others to give W-2s or 1099s

AFAIK, it would not, since status as an "employee" under the NLRA is not necessarily equivalent to status as employee (as opposed to a contractor) for tax purposes, so, insofar as tax status is concerned, this ruling doesn't do anything.

Depends on the institution. I was paid by an NIH training grant and received a 1099, and every year I had to prove to the IRS I wasn't an independent contractor.

Yes. W-2

I suspect that this will lead to students paying taxes on scholarships (and other graduate student funding) at some point in the future. It was a "feel good" win in the short run, but it will be harmful for students in the long run.

What? All of my fellowships/assistantships as a PhD student have always been considered taxable income.

For comparison, PhD students in other universities such as ETHZ have salaries of >$60000 per year and includes benefits such as >20 days of vacation and a pension.

Is this retroactive? My wife would love to go back and get 7 years of FICA paid for.

FINALLY!!!!!

Higher education is ironically one of the least regulated industries in the US. Classifying employees as contractors (adjuncts and grad students), importing cheap labor from overseas, sky-high compensation for administrators who add little value, easy loans to barely adult students without any collateral - the list goes on and on.

Maybe that's a good thing that it's self-governing and less regulated then. Research universities contribute a ton of research and teaching to society. Can't say the same about other industries.

You're kidding right? "Other industries" have literally built pretty much everything you see around you, generated the knowledge to do it, and train millions of workers in it.

You mean after being educated at research universities for years, learning from the academic literature and textbooks, and meeting collaborators in classes? Like Google, right? Or Facebook? Or do you mean Wall Street? Or Boeing?

Or did some self-taught teenager "generate knowledge" in his spare time from scratch?

In the tech industry alone, Google and Microsoft run top-tier research arms. And before them, Bell Labs and others did at least as much as universities to advance the field.

Higher education breeds the thinkers that drive popular opinion -- the thought leaders and intellectual elites. The State bestows special privilege to intellectuals in government and handles academia with kid gloves. That special treatment lasts as long as academia continues to churn out elites who magnify the State in their writings and policy recommendations.

Dissenting voices are dutifully dismissed and compromised in the halls of academia's upper echelons.

My wife, who is an admin at an academic lab, will, however, be looking forward to informing the students in her group that this means that they really do only get two weeks vacation time, and actually need to show up at the office.

Most graduate students I know get no vacation time.

Seems like a weird thing to look forward to telling people...

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