Personal Finance for PhDs

Live a financially balanced life - no Real Job required

Main navigation

fellowship

Weird Tax Situations for Fellowship Recipients

by 10 Comments

One of the most puzzling tax scenarios that is common in academia but almost unheard of outside of it is fellowship funding because it neither a wage nor self-employment income. Fellowships frequently pay the stipends and salaries of grad students and postdocs, but also apply to some other kinds of trainees that aren’t considered students or called postdocs. This post explains the weird tax situations for fellowship recipients and how to resolve them. I’ll clarify right up front that you do need to incorporate your fellowship income into the gross income you report on your tax return, and you almost certainly will end up paying tax on it (unless your total income is very low or you have lots of other deductions/credits).

weird tax fellowship

Further reading/viewing:

I have to define my terms up front here because “fellowship” is used variously inside and outside of academic research, and these weird tax situations don’t always apply. What I’m talking about is when your income from your academic/research role is not reported on a W-2 (and you’re not self-employed). Often, though not always, winning a fellowship generates this kind of income. The NSF GRFP and DoD NDSEG are probably the most well-known examples of this type of income at the graduate level for STEM fields. Basically, you’re being paid because you won an award, not because you are directly trading work or time for money. This kind of income can come from training grants and other kinds of grants as well as fellowships, and in those cases you might or might not be labeled a fellow. If your income is reported on a W-2, whether it’s called a fellowship or not, this post doesn’t apply to you!

Personally, over my time in/near academia, I received non-compensatory pay on five occasions:

  • I was postbaccalaureate fellow at the NIH for a year between undergrad and grad school, and my income was reported on a 1099-G.
  • I was on a training grant in my first year of grad school, and my income was reported on a 1099-MISC in Box 3.
  • I won an internal fellowship for my second year of grad school, and my income was reported on a 1099-MISC in Box 3.
  • I was paid from my advisor’s discretionary funds in my sixth year of grad school, and my income was reported on a 1099-MISC in Box 3.
  • I was a Christine Mirzayan Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the National Academy of Engineering, and my income was reported on a 1099-MISC in Box 3.

Download Your Tax "Cheat Sheet"

Essential information to help funded US domestic graduate students with their federal tax returns

We won't send you spam. Unsubscribe at any time. Powered by ConvertKit

Receiving Unusual Tax Forms

The way to definitively tell that you’re receiving non-compensatory income is that you don’t receive a W-2 at tax time for your income, which was likely paid similarly to a regular salary or perhaps in a lump sum per term. Instead, you might see your income reported on some other strange tax form:

  • 1098-T
  • 1099-MISC

There are other possible mechanism for this reporting; these are the two most commonly used within universities.

Neither of these forms was designed for reporting fellowship income; neither does it very well, but they do get the job done if you know what you’re looking for.

1098-T

A 1098-T, which is issued to some students depending on your university’s policies, is sort of a clearinghouse form for the sum of your fellowships/scholarships/grants received (in Box 5) and also the sum of the qualified tuition and related expenses that were paid (Box 1) to your student account. Your fellowship income might be lumped in with your scholarships in Box 5, which makes them a little hard to parse, or Box 5 might only include your scholarships (see next section if so).

The good thing about the 1098-T if it includes your fellowship income is that it does put front and center two of the important numbers you’ll need to work with when you prepare your tax return, the sum of your non-compensatory (fellowship, scholarship, and grant) income (Box 5) and a subset of your Qualified Education Expenses (Box 1). You don’t really need to know what your fellowship income was independent of your additional scholarship/grant income See Weird Tax Situations for Fully Funded Grad Students for more details about working with the 1098-T.

1099-MISC

The 1099-MISC is a super confusing form to receive for fellowship income.

First, any non-academic who hears/sees that you have income reported on a 1099-MISC is going to think you’re self-employed. Self-employment/contractor income is the most common usage for the 1099-MISC, but that income is reported in Box 7. Fellowship income usually shows up in Box 3, “Other income,” although occasionally it does show up in Box 7. If you are a grad student or postdoc, you are not self-employed; do not pay self-employment tax!

Further reading: Grad Student Tax Lie #2: You Received a 1099-MISC; You Are Self-Employed

Second, the instructions for the 1099-MISC tell you to (“generally”) report your Box 3 “Other income” in the “Other income” line on your Form 1040 Schedule 1 Line 21. You can do it that way and your tax calculation will turn out correctly in a lot of situations, but it’s more correct to report the income explicitly as fellowship/scholarship income. 1099-MISC Box 7 income that is definitely fellowship income should be reported as fellowship instead of as self-employment. In both of these cases, it’s less confusing for the IRS and will possibly enable you to take more educational tax breaks.

Further reading:

Receiving No Tax Forms

Going along with the theme of not receiving a W-2 at tax time, you might very well not receive any tax form at all! It’s very common for there to be zero communication between the organization that pays the fellowship and the fellowship recipient. Other times, the fellow might receive what I call a “courtesy letter,” which is just a short, informal letter stating the amount of fellowship money paid.

Further reading: What Is a Courtesy Letter?

Fellows who don’t receive tax forms or whose universities/institutions don’t communicate with them at all about their personal taxes may feel completely adrift. They have no idea where to even start with preparing their tax returns. Many pay no taxes at all (if you know someone like that, send them this article!) since it takes a certain level of awareness of your tax responsibility to even wonder if you need to pay income tax. Even those who suspect they need to report and pay tax on their fellowship income might be daunted by the task of figuring out from scratch exactly how to do that.

Further listening: Do I Owe Income Tax on My Fellowship?

But it’s really a simple process to carry out if you know what to do! You should be able to find the amount of fellowship income you were paid for the whole year from your bank records. If you’re not a student, you just straight report that number in Form 1040 Line 1 with “SCH” written next to it. If you are a student, you have to work with your other scholarships and qualified education expenses a bit before reporting a number for your non-compensatory pay; see Weird Tax Situations for Fully Funded Grad Students for more details on that.

Further reading: Where to Report Your Grad Student Income on Your Tax Return (applies for non-student fellows as well)

Quarterly Estimated Tax

In my observation, most fellowship recipients have the responsibility of paying quarterly estimated tax, and many, many, many neglect to do so. If you need one level of awareness to even understand you’re supposed to pay tax on your fellowship income, you need an even higher level of awareness before you follow through on paying quarterly estimated tax. In fact, if the organization providing you the fellowship didn’t mention this, it’s not a water cooler topic around your department, and/or you’ve never been self-employed, you almost certainly wouldn’t know to do it.

The basic principle here is that the IRS expects to receive tax payments throughout the year, not just in April when your tax return is due. If you owe enough additional tax at the end of the year (and don’t qualify for an exception), the IRS is going to demand not only your tax payment but late fees and interest as well.

The main system for sending tax in to the IRS is tax withholding on a normal paycheck. If you don’t do that or your withholding isn’t sufficient, you’re supposed to file quarterly estimated tax. Basically, you send in a payment (no forms need to be filed) to the IRS four times per year to make sure you don’t have too much extra tax due when you file your yearly tax return. You should work through the estimated tax worksheet in Form 1040-ES to figure out if you are required to pay quarterly estimated tax and in what amount; you can also find the instructions for filing it in that form.

Taxable Compensation and Earned Income Tax Breaks

Some of the tax breaks the IRS offers are contingent on the type of income you have, and fellowship income (not reported on a W-2) does not necessarily qualify.

Individual Retirement Arrangement

To contribute to an Individual Retirement Arrangement (IRA), you (or your spouse) must have “taxable compensation.” Unfortunately, while taxable, fellowship income does not qualify as “compensation” (Publication 970 p. 5). So if your only income for a whole calendar year is fellowship/non-compensatory income and you’re not married to someone with taxable compensation, you aren’t eligible to contribute to an IRA in that year.

Further reading:

Earned Income Tax Credit

The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) or Earned Income Credit (EIC) is a credit extended to low-income individuals and families. If your household income is quite low and/or you have one or more children, you might be able to receive the credit. As the name implies, you need “earned income” to qualify for the EITC. Unfortunately, fellowship/scholarship income is not considered “earned income” (Publication 596 p. 18). Puzzlingly, having zero earned income disqualifies you from the credit, but having too much non-earned income also disqualifies you from the credit. The definition of earned income also plays into the calculations for the Child Tax Credit and Additional Child Tax Credit.

Further reading: Grad Student Tax Lie #8: You Can Claim the Earned Income Tax Credit

Dependent Status

When you are trying to determine if you should file a tax return as an independent adult vs. a dependent of your parents, it is more difficult to qualify as independent with fellowship income rather than an equal amount of W-2 income. (This only applies to students.) While education expenses count as part of the amount of money that goes toward your “support,” scholarships and fellowships that you won do not count as you providing your own support.

Kiddie Tax

Fellowship income counts as unearned income for the purposes of being subject to the Kiddie Tax. If you are under the age of 24 on December 31 and a student, your “unearned” income exceeding $2,100 may be subject to a higher tax rate than the ordinary rate.

What other weird tax situations have you encountered due to your fellowship income?

Do I Owe Income Tax on My Fellowship?

by 2 Comments

Postbac, graduate student, and postdoc fellows frequently ask whether their fellowships are considered taxable income. PhD-type fellowships that are not reported on a W-2 are non-compensatory income. They might be reported on a 1098-T in Box 5, on a 1099-MISC in Box 3, or on a courtesy letter or not reported at all, which accounts for the widespread confusion. Publication 970 answers the question of when a fellowship can be considered tax-free. Fellowships are considered part of the recipient’s taxable income unless they go toward paying qualified education expenses (students only).

Links Mentioned in the Episode

income tax fellowship

Transcript

Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast – a higher education in personal finance. I’m your host, Emily Roberts.

I’m doing something a little bit different in this special bonus episode for Season 2.

I’m using it to answer a frequently asked question that I receive about taxes. The question is: Do I owe income tax on my fellowship?

In this episode, I’m speaking to citizens and residents in the United States. And I’m also talking about PhD-type fellowships whether at the postbac level, the graduate student level, or the postdoc level.

What’s going on with these fellowships that makes the recipient question whether or not they are taxable is that they are not reported on a W-2. They might not be reported at all, or they may be reported on a 1098-T in Box 5, on a 1099-MISC in Box 3, or on a courtesy letter, which is not an official tax form but rather just a letter that states what the amount of the fellowship was in that calendar year.

Fellowship income is considered part of your taxable income. Now, you may not actually end up paying tax on your fellowship income depending on the rest of your return, like the deductions and credits you’re going to be able to take, but it is considered part of that taxable income.

Now, I know you’re not inclined to just believe me right off the bat. I mean, there’s a strong incentive for you to believe that your fellowship income is not taxable, so I’m going to give you a bit of evidence here.

IRS Publication 970 is the definitive publication on the taxability of fellowship and scholarship income. I’ll read you a few excerpts from Chapter 1 of Publication 970.

First, some definitions:

A scholarship is generally an amount paid or allowed to, or for the benefit of, a student (whether an undergraduate or a graduate) at an educational institution to aid in the pursuit of his or her studies.

A fellowship grant is generally an amount paid for the benefit of an individual to aid in the pursuit of study or research.

So you can see that fellowship grants are much more broad; they can be issued to non-students, whereas scholarships only go to students.

Chapter 1 of Publication 970 approaches fellowships and scholarships from the perspective of trying to make them tax-free.

So let’s see how that can happen:

A scholarship or fellowship grant is tax free (excludable from gross income) only if you are a candidate for a degree at an eligible educational institution.

So right off the bat we know that anybody who is receiving a fellowship who is not a student cannot make their fellowship tax-free, i.e., it is part of their taxable income.

Additionally:

A scholarship or fellowship grant is tax free only to the extent: It doesn’t exceed your qualified education expenses…

So now we’re just dealing with the graduate student population that has the potential to make a scholarship or fellowship grant tax-free.

The way that we use the terms ‘scholarship’ and ‘fellowship’ in academia, a ‘fellowship’ generally refers to the money that you take home for your living expenses, whereas ‘scholarship’ is the money that goes towards paying your tuition and fees, the qualified education expenses.

Very roughly speaking, your qualified education expenses can make your scholarships tax-free if you’re a fully funded graduate student, but there’s no more qualified education expenses to start making your fellowship income tax-free. Therefore, again, roughly, your fellowship income is included in your taxable income.

So to summarize, fellowship and scholarship income that goes towards paying our qualified education expenses like tuition and fees can be made tax-free, but fellowship and scholarship income that goes towards paying other kinds of expenses like your living expenses can’t be made tax-free.

Now, I’m glossing over some very important details on how you actually calculate your taxable income, so if you want more information about that, please see the tax center on my website, pfforphds.com/tax.

But, there you go, roughly speaking, fellowship income does need to be included in your taxable income, whether you are a postbac, a graduate student, or a postdoc.

Thanks for joining me in this short bonus episode!

Please share this episode on social media and with your peers because this is a message that they need to hear. It’s not a message that they want to hear, but it’s a message that they need to hear to stay on the right side of the IRS.

Show notes for this episode can be found at pfforphds.com/s2be1.

Thanks for joining me today, and I’ll see you in the next episode!

Further reading/viewing:

Using Data to Improve the Postdoc Experience (Including Salary and Benefits)

by Leave a Comment

In this episode, Emily interview Dr. Gary McDowell, the executive director of Future of Research. Future of Research is an advocacy organization that uses data to empower early-career researchers. Gary outlines the ongoing work at Future of Research before diving into the details of their recently published study on postdoc salaries. Emily and Gary discuss the complexities around categorizing and counting postdocs as well as the interesting results from the data Future of Research acquired by Freedom of Information Act requests. Current postdocs can contribute to this ongoing project by submitting their salary and benefits data to the Postdoc Salaries database.

 

Links mentioned in episode

postdoc salaries

0:00 Introduction

1:07 Please Introduce Yourself

Dr. Gary McDowell is from Northern Ireland and Scotland. All of his undergraduate and postgraduate education was completed in the United Kingdom. He moved to the United States to become postdoc. First, he worked at Boston Children’s Hospital, then he worked at Tufts University in the Boston area. As a postdoc in the United States, Gary became interested in the scientific system itself, such as setting scientists up for success and producing scientists, not just science. He experienced the frustration that many people feel with the scientific system and its hyper competition.

Now Gary is the executive director of the nonprofit Future of Research. Their mission is to empower early career researchers with evidence to help them change the research system and the enterprise they experience.

3:00 Can you give us an overview of Future of Research and the organization’s work?

Gary is the only staff member of Future of Research. The board of is comprised of twenty early career researchers. The organization originated with a conference to bring early career researchers together to discuss ways to reduce hyper-competition in biomedicine. They held conferences around the country and realized the need for a group that has these conversations. The nonprofit provides data and evidence to early career researchers to help them make better choices and to educate the rest of scientific community of the realities our generation is currently experiencing. Their work is done by the board and volunteers.

Future of Research has worked on two major projects which came out of local meetings. The project “Who’s on board?” aims to get more early career researchers into leadership positions, starting with scientific societies. Through this project, Future of Research seeks to generate a network of future leaders for scientific organizations to tap into. They are working on a project to address mentoring, because it is one of the biggest concerns of early career researchers. Junior faculty often ask, “How do I find out more about how to mentor and manage people?” Junior faculty are expected to be mentors, but don’t know how to. Future of Research will host a summit in Chicago to bring together people who work in this space and who research mentoring. They will discuss what grassroots action they can take to make sure institutions are putting mentoring at the center of their interests.

Future of Research has been responsive to needs that arise. They are beginning a project to examine peer review and address this phenomenon of grad students and postdocs essentially ghostwriting a peer review report that is then submitted to a journal under someone else’s name. This is a problem of appropriate scholarly recognition, but at the same time the academic community hears there are not enough reviewers. Journals are crying out for more reviewers, but there is lack of transparency about who’s doing reviews, creating barriers to journals having names of potential reviewers. Surveys suggest that principle investigators are not trained in peer review, their practices come from assumptions, and there is generally lack of clarity of expectations in the peer review process.

Future of Research has just finished a postdoc salary project. It started when they formed the nonprofit. At the time, there was a change to federal labor law being proposed. The change was going to affect postdocs by raising their salaries, or by causing institutions to have postdocs clocking in and out and tracking time. Future of Research watched the push to raise postdoc salaries, and started following what institutions would do in response. They had the question about what are the actual salaries that people in postdoc positions have?

8:34 What is your recent paper and where can people find it?

The title of their paper is “Assessing the landscape of U.S. postdoctoral salaries.” It’s open access in the Studies in Graduate and Postdoctoral Education, Emerald Insight Publishing Groups.

9:07 What is a postdoc?

According to Gary, the PhD is when the trainee is learning how to do science, how to carry out research, how to do experiments, and analyze,. The PhD is for learning the nuts and bolts of being a scientist. The postdoc is intermediate, after the PhD and before the professor position. Gary’s opinion is that a postdoc should be considered as a period when you should be thinking about your own research goals and how to take those foward. Postdocs should be learning under the mentorship or apprenticeship of an investigator. Postdocs should be learning how to manage a group, mentor people, manage budgets, write grants, and lead a team.

However, Gary says that the postdoc is more likely a period of further research. Many people change field and get experience in another research group. Postdocs are often trying to get a certain number of published papers. Postdocs are trying to demonstrate they can succeed in a different lab and accrue credentials to get a faculty position to start as a professor.

Emily adds that there are eleven different common titles under which postdocs can be hired. There is a discrepancy between how employers see postdocs and how postdocs see themselves. What level of awareness do universities have around their own postdocs?

11:55 How was the idea for a project to assess postdoc salaries formed? What question were you asking?

When the team at Future of Research was looking at policies that were being updated in response to labor law, they realized that these policies at an institution don’t tell us necessarily what people are getting paid. Though the institution has a policy about postdoc salaries, actually paying postdocs that amount requires adherence to policy and someone following up to enforce policy. The team saw a pre-print paper by Rescuing Biomedical Research, another nonprofit, which looked at National Science Foundation data on number of postdocs and concluded that the number of postdocs in decline. They questioned whether there is truly a decline, or instead a bubble of people staying in postdoc positions for longer. These questions led them to start the project to collect data on postdoc salaries.

The team at Future of Research found that institutions are doing a terrible job of reporting year to year how many postdocs they had. While institutions were receptive to policy changes, if the institutions don’t know who the postdocs are to begin with, will people fall through the cracks? Will the policies actually be reflected in reality? The institution could recommend salary, but never follow up.

Institutions are also in a constant argument over whether postdocs are employees or trainees. Unfortunately, it seems postdocs are employees when it suits, such as when the institution needs to keep postdocs out of things they need to do for students, but postdocs are trainees in terms of lower salaries and receiving no benefits.

14:18 What position counts as an employee or not an employee?

Gary explains that whether a position is designated as an “employee” is complicated by where the money comes from. Postdocs may be “staff” on a grant, or postdocs may be on fellowships of various kinds. When postdocs are on fellowships or paid directly, they are usually referred to as trainees, typically lose benefits, and the institution says they are no longer an employee. The U.S. Department of Labor created a specification about who is an employee, specifying that it’s not who pays you, it’s the nature of the work. The Department of Labor made this specification because some institutions tried to designate postdocs as fellows to get out of the new labor law. The Department of Labor explicitly sent this message to the National Institutes of Health, stipulating that the NIH had to raise fellowship stipend under the new law.

17:08 What did you do for the postdoc salaries project?

The team from Future of Research wanted to analyze postdoc salaries, but they learned that this information was not easy to find. They carried out Freedom of Information requests at public institutions. They contacted the Freedom of Information or Public Records offices at public institutions, which were legally required to give out data like this. They asked for the position title and salary of everyone who was a postdoc, on date of December 1, 2016 when the new labor law was due to come into effect and changes were likely to happen. This method forces the institution to provide information, and this method served as an internal metric of whether universities know what postdocs are. Certain institutions didn’t know what a postdoc was, and asked Future of Research to explain what a postdoc is. Future of Research cross checked the information they received from Freedom of Information requests with the National Science Foundation data on postdoc numbers.

20:05 What was your analysis of the data from public institutions?

Future of Research had a data scientist on the team, who analyzed the distribution of salaries. They brought out patterns by geographic region, by gender, and by title. They examined what variables were affecting the salaries. Their aim was to assess the landscape and figure out what salary distribution looked like. This could set the bar to work from for efforts going forward.

21:07 What were the broad conclusions of the postdoc salaries project? Was there anything surprising to you?

Gary says they got broad distributions of postdoc salaries. Nature published a write-up that emphasized that postdoc salaries vary wildly by institution. Most people received between $40,000 and $49,999 annual pay. They found that 22% of all their data was within a $25 range around the new National Institute of Health minimum stipend, which was very close to the proposed salary threshold is under the federal labor law. Gary shares that when Future of Research considers the levers they need to pull to raise postdoc salaries, it is a very useful finding that the median salary of all postdocs across the US, regardless of field, was pegged to minimum NIH National Research Service Award stipend amount. The most effective policy lever for raising postdoc salaries in the U.S. is to get NIH to raise the NRSA award stipends.

Emily emphasizes that so many universities go off the NIH minimum salaries, even though it’s just a recommendation, and it’s just a minimum. She points out that this minimum doesn’t take into account different cost of living. Is this the minimum for Bethesda, Maryland, where the NIH is located? Institutions go off this as if it is absolute truth. Gary brings up that in December 2018, NIH raised minimum salary. Now the minimum is $50,000, this amount has been recommended for quite some time. Gary and Jessica Polka, president of Future of Research, are on the National Academies study for the Next Generation Researchers Initiative. They will be releasing recommendations informed by this data.

Gary was surprised by how many salaries were in the $50,000 range. They broke down the distribution by field for a large subset and found no real field dependence for the salaries. People would expect the humanities to be lower, but the humanities were not lower. Gary was surprised by how often biomedical engineering salaries were in the lower end of the distribution. Gary wonders who negotiates, and if there’s a disparity in who’s negotiating. He mentions that talking about money in academia is stigmatized.

Emily created the website PhD stipends with her husband. Now it has over 4000 entries in it. It is a great place to go for prospective graduate students. She has thought there should be the same resource for postdocs. They have started postdocsalaries.com for people to self-report their salaries. Future of Research obtained information from public institutions, but they are completely missing private institutions. Self reporting also provides a check on whether what the institution reports matches what postdocs report. Postdocsalaries.com is a useful self reporting tool, that helps other people compare salaries and gives them the opportunity to comment on issues.

Gary discusses that when he gives a talk at institution, he loves to bring up money. He wants to break the stigma that ‘we’re not supposed to talk about this’ and tell people that this should be one of the questions that you ask your prospective PI. Gary says how that question is answered will tell you a lot about the PI as a person. You should look for someone who responds “I would love to pay you more, we can look into fellowships or I can find opportunities to pay you extra,” and steer clear of potential advisors who say “This isn’t about the money.” This is part of gathering information for your decision.

37:08 What are some action steps that postdocs can take today to improve their salaries, benefits, or working conditions?

Gary says always having data at hand is useful for individuals and groups to advocate. With data, you can approach an institution with the salaries that people are getting in your field, and point out that this is what the policy says so this is the expectation. This is action you can take on the personal level.

When Future of Research compared institutions publicly, there were administrators who could now use the data to say that the institution is being compared to everyone else, if they want to be competitive for postdocs they need to raise postdoc salaries. For groups looking to push for change in an institution, there are a number of lines of evidence. Gary says that comparing with peer institutions is useful. The most recent recommendations are that postdoc salaries should be at least $50,000 then adjusted for cost of living, then for your years of experience.

Listeners should go to postdocsalaries.com to get involved and learn more.

40:56 Conclusion

Negotiating PhD Funding Offers: This Grad Student Did It Successfully

by Leave a Comment

In this episode, Emily interviews John Vsetecka, a second-year PhD student in History at Michigan State University. When John was a prospective PhD student, he attempted to negotiate the stipend and benefits of the three admissions offers he was seriously considering. John shares exactly how he initiated the negotiation process and the outcomes at each of the universities. His negotiation method is well-researched and well-considered and is applicable to many if not most other prospective graduate students. John and Emily also discuss how prospective PhD students should combat imposter syndrome during the admissions process.

Links mentioned in episode

negotiating PhD offer

0:00 Introduction

1:05 Please Introduce Yourself

John Vsetecka is a second-year PhD student in the Department of History at Michigan State University. He studies modern Ukrainian history, with a focus on the 1932-1933 famine. Before beginning his PhD program, he worked as a GEAR UP advisor. This is a federal grant agency that works with low income students, called Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs. He worked in Colorado to help middle school and high school, low income students prepare for college. Before this job, he got a Master of Arts in History in 2014 at the University of Northern Colorado.

2:55 What PhD offers and interview requests did you receive from universities?

When John applied to PhD programs, he applied to eight schools and faced some rejections. He considered four offers, then narrowed his list to three. The first offer he eliminated would have required that he start with MA and work into PhD. Since he already had an MA, he felt he was ready to move on. He seriously considered three offers. He accepted the offer from Michigan State University, where he is now. He visited “University 2” in person for an interview. He had a virtual interview with “University 3.”

4:21 What did you think about the offers from these three universities?

John wasn’t sure what a fair offer was for a PhD position in History. Generally, PhD students are shy about sharing their financial experiences. So he did research and his mentor from the University of Northern Colorado guided him in this process. He talked to other PhD students, who would say they had enough to live on or that they were struggling. He used the websites GradCafe and PhD Stipends. He got a sense of what people were being paid, including their health insurance and fees. From all of this information, he decided two offers were fair and worth considering.

Emily shares an important piece of advice for prospective PhD students is to do your research. Anonymous databases, like PhD Stipends, provide more transparency around these offers. But you should talk to current graduate students, because it’s one thing to look at the numbers, and another thing to get a feel for how it is to live on that amount.

Further Reading: How to Read Your PhD Program Offer Letter

7:54 How did you initiate the negotiation process for your PhD stipend offers?

John negotiated his stipend offers during his interviews. He went to visit two universities in person for interviews, and had a virtual interview a University 3. His first interview was at University 2. During the visit, they have an itinerary and fully scheduled day. The experience is like a whirlwind. He prepared a set of questions for faculty members and set of questions for Graduate Director. With the Graduate Director, he talked about the PhD program as a whole to get their insight. Then he directly asked the Graduate Director if there is any other money available, such as other fellowships, and explained that he has other offers with higher financial value. The Graduate Director is the one that can control the money. The faculty can only put in good word on a student’s behalf. So as a prospective PhD student, you should know who you can talk to and know who you can negotiate with. You don’t need to be afraid to ask tough questions about financial aid.

The PhD program interview was a good time to negotiate PhD stipend offers. John waited until he received all offers to see where he stood across the field, and this gave him some leverage. Negotiating like this is is what people do with any other job. John told the Graduate Director that he had other offers, but he didn’t show them the letters themselves. Negotiating before receiving all other offers and before the interview can seem desperate. But if he negotiated after the visit, it might seem like that offer wasn’t his first choice and he was only negotiating after losing another offer. John also believes that talking in person is the best type of communication. Negotiating in person puts them on the spot.

During his interview visit for University 2, John asked the Graduate Director about the potential for a better financial package. The Graduate Director told John that they would get back to him a couple hours. Later that day, John received an email with a offer for a fellowship package. This showed John that they were willing to work on his behalf. He was surprised by this because he had expected them to negotiate and push back. During the interview visit, the department is most focused on recruitment, so they quickly considered his request and acted on it.

John went into the meeting with a set plan for negotiation. He had a notebook and visibly took notes during the conversation, which indicates that he took the negotiation seriously. Treating graduate school interviews like a professional scenario sets you up for success.

14:35 What new offer did you receive after negotiating?

Because he negotiated with the Graduate Director, John received an offer of a university fellowship instead of a teaching assistantship. The new offer was university-based funding, not department-based funding like his original offer. The university fellowship had different teaching requirements than the department teaching assistantship. It was more money in total, as well as better health care coverage. This showed what kind of control the department and university has over financial awards for PhD students. Even if the university can’t raise stipends, they can cover more fees or provide better benefits.

16:22 What outcomes did you get from negotiating with the other two universities?

John learned that not everyone would negotiate. At Michigan State, he had a generous offer that he was already happy with. Even so, he asked the Director of Graduate Studies at Michigan State about his financial award. The director kindly told him that his original financial award was what the department was willing to offer. John later learned that his department offers different financial packages based on a tiered system, and he was happy with the offer he received.

At University 3, John had a virtual meeting with the department. John brought up that he had offers with much more value than what they had offered him. John says that honestly, he was displeased with University 3’s financial offer. He learned that due to financial constraints at University 3, the department couldn’t offer more money. The department suggested term-to-term options. John didn’t want to be on his toes every semester wondering if he’d get paid. Though University 3 offered paid tuition, the money offered for teaching/research was not enough to even consider.

It’s important for prospective PhD students to recognize that some offers only tell you about the first year, while others present a five-year plan for funding.

19:35 Based on what you experienced, what would you do to negotiate differently?

John says he wouldn’t change much. While he knew negotiation was possible, he personally didn’t know anyone in his cohort group that negotiated their stipend offer. John heard from his advisors and mentors that it’s ok to ask, but you have to know to ask. John says this is one of those hidden things in academia. If prospective graduate students receive multiple offers, this is a chance to use offers against each other.
even if you get one offer, be happy, but if you get more offers you can use them

Emily brings up that often, applicants don’t feel a lot of confidence. They often think, “Who am I to be receiving these offers?” This imposter syndrome deters prospective PhD students from negotiating their stipends and ensuring that they receive the best offer.

22:27 How did you know negotiating your PhD offer would be possible and welcome?

John’s MA program advisor told him how to negotiate PhD stipend offers. First, you have to apply to multiple universities and know their programs well. Second, you need to know who you want to work with. Third, you need to talk with current graduate students. This is the most important advice. If you find their email on department websites, you can email them directly. Fourth, online communities like GradCafe help you connect with people who can help you.

John says that graduate school applicants should treat a PhD position like any other job. John says this profession should not be excluded from the process of negotiation. John’s experience at GEAR UP, where he helped low income students fight for undergraduate school money, showed him that there is a lot of money out there. He says it’s unfortunate so many undergraduates go into a lot of debt, when there are all types of money out there for different skills and talents. John wonders why graduate students can’t have that money too? There are different organizations, based in different fields, but money is out there. He suggests prospective students apply to everything they’re qualified for, but they also ask universities and departments what they can give.

Emily adds that prospective PhD students need to consider cost of living. If you have school A versus school B with higher stipend and in lower cost of living, you can ask the school A’s department what they can do to make the offer comparable.

26:44 Has your negotiation had any lasting impact on your graduate career?

John says the negotiation process doesn’t stop when you receive your final offer. Negotiation is a longer standing issue to think about in the future. At Michigan State, John and his peers negotiate for conference money, travel money, research money for the summer. Some graduate students can’t find money beyond teaching assistantships. Because he considered these benefits in his financial offer, he accepted a position that allows him the time and money to not worry. He has summer funding and he can teach online. For instance, he taught a seven week class online while being in Ukraine for research. He chose a school with an institutional investment. The department is doing well and it is investing in its students. He saw that the department was willing to invest continually in their students. He thinks the investment will continue after he graduates.

29:33 Final Comments

John says prospective graduate students should feel free to reach out to him. He likes to help in any way he can. When you get your offers, the first thing you should do is celebrate, and get a round of applause. After celebrating, look over your financial offer, and look beyond stipend to health insurance and benefits. If you get multiple offers, compare them. Be confident about your acceptance into a program and don’t be afraid to negotiate. Know that you have power in these situations. Even though graduate students often don’t have much power, this is the situation where you do. You have all the power and you should use it while you can.

John treated PhD offers like job offers because it’s also a job, in literal and figurative sense.

31:27 Conclusion

The First Step to Complete Your Grad Student Tax Return (2018)

by Leave a Comment

There is one vital step grad students need to take when starting to prepare their tax returns. It’s a super simple step, but most often overlooked, and skipping it can lead to an inaccurate return or even overpaying tax. This is the step that you take before you start feeding any numbers to your 1040, your tax software, or your tax preparer, and it is to find and categorize all of your income sources (funded grad students have at least two!).

If you found this video insightful and you want to take the next step to completing your tax return – including one trick to reduce your tax due that your tax software or tax preparer can easily miss – register for my workshop, “How to Complete Your 2018 Grad Student Tax Return (and Understand It, Too!).”

grad student tax return step

How Much Tax Will I Owe on My Fellowship Stipend or Salary?

by 1 Comment

If you have recently started receiving a fellowship for your graduate or postdoc stipend or salary, you are likely aware that income tax is not being withheld for you. While your fellowship income is taxed as ordinary income at the federal and usually state levels, only in rare cases do universities actually offer you automatic tax withholding. Therefore, it falls to you to manually pay your own tax due either quarterly or once per year. But how do you figure out how much tax you will owe on your income?

Further reading:

monthly tax fellowship

When you start receiving a fellowship and in January of every subsequent year, you should first determine whether you are required to pay quarterly estimated tax both at the federal and state levels. Whether the answer is yes or no, your next step is to calculate how much you should set aside from each paycheck to pay your ultimate tax bill(s) for the year and set up your own system of tax withholding (e.g., an automated transfer to a dedicated savings account following your receipt of each paycheck). Then, you will be prepared to make the necessary payment when the due date arrives.

Further reading:

This post details three methods by which you can calculate the approximately amount of federal tax you will have to pay on each month of fellowship stipend or salary income that you receive.

Method 1: Use Form 1040-ES

Form 1040-ES that you previously filled out is very useful for figuring out how much you should set aside from each paycheck to pay your federal income tax bill. Form 1040 Line 11c tells you the amount of tax you have estimated that you will owe for the year (above what you and/or your spouse will have withheld). Simply divide your value in Line 11c by the number of fellowship paychecks you’ll receive in the calendar year; that is the amount of money you should set aside for federal income tax from each paycheck.

(Note: You might be tempted to divide your value in Line 15, which is how much you’re required to pay in estimated tax in each quarter, by the number of pay periods in each quarter. However, doing this will cause you to owe additional tax when you file your yearly tax return of at least 10% of the total estimated tax.)

Method 2: Use My Super-Simple Spreadsheet

Instead of referring to Form 1040-ES to calculate the amount of money you should set aside in tax, you can instead use a spreadsheet I made (sign up below to download it). (Disclaimer: I take no responsibility for your tax calculations!)

With this spreadsheet, you only have to plug one number, which is your gross monthly fellowship income (cell B1, yellow; a dummy amount of $2,500 is already present). If necessary, you may also change the number of children you have who qualify for the child tax credit (cell B3, in orange) and the amount of itemized and other deductions you plan to claim (cell C7 or D7, in orange).

The spreadsheet then tells you the amount of federal income tax you should expect to pay from just that monthly income if you are single (cell B17, in red) or if you are married (cell C17, in red).

Such a simple spreadsheet makes assumptions, of course, so it’s not appropriate for everyone. Its calculation will be accurate only if:

  • Your only household income for the month is your fellowship income, i.e., you have no side income and your spouse (if any) has no income,
  • You will not be claimed as a dependent on anyone else’s return,
  • You aren’t going to claim any credits aside from the child tax credit,
  • You don’t have any large qualified education expenses that you pay out of pocket, and
  • Your monthly income hasn’t changed greatly over the course of the calendar year.

The advantage of this spreadsheet over the other methods is that it only asks about one month’s income instead of the entire year’s, so it’s a useful tool if you started your fellowship mid-year, for example after holding another position that automatically withheld income tax for you (as long as the amount of tax you had withheld was close to what you actually owed). In that case, you can get close to the right answer for how much tax you should set aside without having to look at your full year’s income and withholdings for Form 1040-ES.

If you’re not sure how to use my spreadsheet or if its assumptions apply to you, just shoot me an email!

Method 3: Use the IRS’s Withholding Calculator

The IRS also provides a withholding calculator that has been updated for 2018. It asks you to enter your filing status, dependency status, job transitions, which credits you plan to take and their amounts, income, tax withholding, and amount of itemized deductions (if any).

This calculator is much more thorough than my simple spreadsheet above. If you have a complicated tax return, this is the more appropriate calculator to use to determine how much money you should set aside for federal income tax payments.

If you have a complicate financial life (e.g., a spouse with income, no income or a much higher income earlier in the year, extra credits or deductions), you should use either Form 1040-ES or the IRS calculator to help you determine how much money to set aside for tax from each paycheck because they take into account many of the elements that will be present on your yearly federal tax return. If you are a single-income household and have a simple financial life, my spreadsheet will get you the answer of how much money to self-withhold from each of your fellowship paychecks faster.

Whichever way you do the calculation, be sure to follow through on setting up your automated self-tax withholding. It’s the next best solution to having tax automatically withheld from your income by your university!

P.S. If you want to estimate how much you will pay in state tax as well as federal, try the Smart Asset calculator. (As of this writing, the calculator primarily reflects tax year 2017.) This calculator is also very simple, so it does not allow for the input of credits. It also includes FICA tax, which does not apply to graduate student fellowships and likely does not apply to postdoc fellowships. If you are using it specifically for estimating your state tax due, keep in mind that fellowship income is not always taxed as ordinary income at the state level. (For example, fellowship income is exempt from tax in Alabama.)

Loading…