Personal Finance for PhDs

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Weird Tax Situations for Fellowship and Training Grant Recipients

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One of the most puzzling tax scenarios that is common in academia—but almost unheard of outside of it—is fellowship or training grant funding because it is neither a wage nor self-employment income. Fellowships and training grants, which I call “awarded income,” frequently pay the stipends and salaries of graduate students, postdocs, and postbacs. This post explains the weird tax situations for fellowship and training grant recipients and how to address them. I’ll clarify right up front that you do need to incorporate your awarded 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

This article was last updated on 1/17/2025. It is intended for US citizens, permanent residents, and residents for tax purposes. It is not tax, legal, or financial advice.

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 Form W-2 (and you’re not self-employed).

Often, though not always, winning an external or internal fellowship generates this kind of income. The National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (GRFP) and the Department of Defense National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship (NDSEG) are among 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 also come from training grants, such as the National Institutes of Health Ruth L. Kirschstein Institutional National Research Service Award (T32), and in those cases you might or might not be labeled a fellow by your institution.

If your income is reported on a Form 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 awarded income 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.

Receiving Unusual Tax Forms

The way to definitively tell that you’re receiving awarded income is that you don’t receive a Form 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:

  • Form 1098-T
  • Form 1099-MISC
  • Form 1099-NEC
  • Form 1099-G

There are other possible mechanism for this reporting; these are the four most commonly used by universities and funding agencies.

None of these forms was designed for reporting awarded income and none do it very well, but they do get the job done if you know what you’re looking for.

Form 1098-T

Form 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 Form 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 awarded (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 Form 1098-T.

Form 1099-MISC

Form 1099-MISC is a slightly confusing form to receive for fellowship income.

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 and contractor income used to be reported in Box 7, which no longer exists following the creation of Form 1099-NEC (see next). Fellowship income usually shows up in Box 3, “Other income.” If you are a grad student or postdoc, you are not self-employed; do not pay self-employment tax!

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. There is a precise line on which you should do so: Form 1040 Schedule 1 Line 8r, which is labeled “Scholarship and fellowship grants not reported on Form W-2.”

Form 1099-NEC

The IRS resurrected Form 1099-NEC, which stands for “non-employee compensation,” starting in tax year 2020. All self-employment and contractor income is now supposed to be reported in Box 1.

Unfortunately, a minority of funding agencies are also reporting awarded income on Form 1099-NEC Box 1. Similar to Form 1099-MISC, if you are certain that this income is fellowship or training grant income and not self-employment income, you should report it as fellowship income on your tax return. If you erroneously report it as self-employment income, you will pay self-employment tax (15.3%) and exclude yourself from taking a higher education tax break.

Form 1099-G

Form 1099-G is typically used when the funding body is part of the federal government. The awarded income shows up in Box 6, “Taxable grants.”

Further reading:

Receiving No Tax Forms

Going along with the theme of not receiving a Form 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 institutions and funding agencies 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 or training grant 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 Schedule 1 Line 8r. 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 awarded income; see Weird Tax Situations for Fully Funded Grad Students for more details.

Further reading: Where to Report Your PhD Trainee Income on Your Tax Return

Quarterly Estimated Tax

In my observation, the great majority of awarded income 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 or close to someone who is 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 pay 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 on p. 8 of 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.

Further reading: The Complete Guide to Quarterly Estimated Tax for Fellowship Recipients

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 From 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.”

Through 2019, the definition of “taxable compensation” did not include fellowship and training grant income not reported on Form W-2. However, starting in 2020, the definition of “taxable compensation” changed for graduate students and postdocs to include fellowship and training grant income even if not reported on From W-2.

Therefore, all types of graduate student and postdoc taxable income, whether reported on a Form W-2 or not, is eligible to be contributed to an IRA starting in 2020.

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.

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 under age 24.) 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 $2,500 may be subject to a higher tax rate than the ordinary rate.

Further reading: Fellowship Income Can Trigger the Kiddie Tax

Weird Tax Situations for Fully Funded Grad Students

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“Actually, I get paid to go to school.” How many times have you said that to distant relatives and new acquaintances? If you look at it that way, being a funded grad student is a pretty sweet gig. But there are definitely downsides, like the low pay, sub-par benefits, and the weird tax situations that come with getting paid to be a grad student in the US. Receiving a 1098-T that has seemingly no basis in reality and having to incorporate it into your tax return—or worse, not receiving one—can become a real time- and energy-suck. The whole tax return support system seems to have been set up to help people who are in the red with their universities, not people who are in the black. Fortunately, there are solutions to these weird tax situations for fully funded grad students, and I’ve brought them to light for you in this point.

weird tax fully funded grad student

The points covered in this post are strictly to do with being a funded graduate student (“candidate for a degree”) at a US university. It is primarily written for graduate students who are US citizens, permanent residents, and residents for tax purposes.

This article was most recently updated on 1/17/2025. It is not tax, financial, or legal advice.

Further reading:

You Might or Might Not Receive a 1098-T

Form 1098-T looks like a super official tax form, rather like Form W-2. However, it’s not as weighty of a form as other tax forms you might receive for the purpose of reporting income. Form 1098-T’s primary purpose is to let the IRS know that a student (or a student’s parents) might try to take a higher education tax credit so that it can check the amount of the tax break claimed; it’s not designed and is not well-suited for reporting income, which is primarily what funded graduate students need to do. In fact, it’s optional for universities to even generate a Form 1098-T for a student for whom the Form 1098-T’s Box 5 (“Scholarships or grants”) would be greater than Box 1 (“Payments received for qualified tuition and related expenses”), which is often the case for funded graduate students. So as a fully funded graduate student, you might receive a 1098-T or you might not; the choice belongs to your university.

Further reading: What Is a 1098-T?

Your 1098-T Might Mislead You

The only thing worse than not receiving a 1098-T is receiving one that is misleading.

Further reading: Form 1098-T: Still Causing Trouble for Funded Graduate Students

When a 1098-T is issued, it is supposed to contain all of the scholarships and grants that were processed through the graduate student’s account (Box 5) as well as the payments received (Box 1) for qualified tuition and related expenses. In addition, your fellowship stipend might appear in Box 5 (or it might not). You would think this would be straightforward bookkeeping, yet I’ve spoken with numerous graduate students who, even after careful study of the transactions in their student accounts, could not understand how the sums were calculated.

Even if your Form 1098-T is a straightforward representation of the transactions in your student account, the net fellowship/scholarship income you should report on your tax return is not necessarily Box 5 minus Box 1. More on that next!

You Have to Calculate Your Taxable Awarded Income

It’s really straightforward to report your Form W-2 income, which I call “employee income,” on your tax return. The number is right there in Box 1, and it goes into Form 1040 Line 1a.

However, you have to calculate the taxable portion of your fellowship/scholarship/grant income, which I call “awarded income,” before reporting it on your tax return.

This is because, as a student (“candidate for a degree”), you’re eligible for a higher education tax break called tax-free scholarships and fellowships, which is detailed in Publication 970 Chapter 1. This means that the awarded income that you receive is taxable only to the extent that it exceeds your “qualified education expenses.”

To calculate your taxable awarded income, you need to add up all of your awarded income and then subtract all of your qualified education expenses. (This is not the same calculation as subtracting your Form 1098-T Box 1 from your Form 1098-T Box 5—more on that next!) Sometimes, this will net out to zero, like if the scholarship for your tuition exactly pays the amount of your tuition. Sometimes, there will be excess income or excess qualified education expenses.

In fact, funded graduate students often overpay their true tax liability because they miss accounting for some of their qualified education expenses! This could happen because they forgot about an education expense they paid for out of pocket or because they misunderstood that a charge in their student account actually was a qualified education expenses under this benefit.

Further reading: Where to Report Your PhD Trainee Income on Your Tax Return

You Have to Figure Out Your Own Qualified Education Expenses

To expand on that point, there is a lot of well-deserved confusion over what a “qualified education expense” actually is. This is because the definition of a Qualified Education Expense is slightly different depending on the tax break you’re trying to take. Yeah, that’s another weird tax situation for fully funded grad students.

IRS Publication 970 p. 4:

“Even though the same term, such as qualified education expenses, is used to label a basic component of many of the education benefits, the same expenses aren’t necessarily allowed for each benefit.”

Tuition is considered a qualified education expense for tax-free scholarships and fellowships and the two higher education tax credits, but some additional expenses, such as required fees and course-related expenses, e.g., books and supplies, are included in the definition for tax-free scholarships and fellowships. Even a personal computer could be considered a qualified education expense for tax-free scholarships and fellowships under very well-defined circumstances. These types of expenses are unlikely to appear on your 1098-T in Box 1 because they’re usually paid out of pocket. You should refer to Publication 970 for the full definitions of qualified education expenses under the three different education benefits.

Furthermore, the number that appears in Box 1 of your Form 1098-T is not the sum of your qualified education expenses that are processed by your student account. Box 1 of Form 1098-T reflects “qualified tuition and related expenses,” which has its own definition that excludes certain expenses that are qualified education expenses under tax-free scholarships and fellowships.

Further reading: What Are Qualified Education Expenses?

One controversial point is whether your student health insurance premium is a required fee/qualified education expense for the purpose of making the scholarship that pays it tax-free. Insurance and student health fees, along with some other expenses, are explicitly disallowed as qualified education expenses for the Lifetime Learning Credit, but not for making scholarships tax-free.

My tax return preparation workshop contains a complete discussion of qualified education expenses, including common gray-area examples that graduate students encounter, and how to calculate the taxable portion of your awarded income.

You Might or Might Not Be a Dependent of Your Parents

Because graduate students are students, they might be considered dependents of their parents (or another relative) for tax purposes if they were under age 24 on 12/31. Many parents (and their tax preparers) try to claim their of-age children as dependents without referencing the relevant definitions. If your parents assume you are a dependent but you believe you are not, together you can go through the definition carefully to make the final determination.

The conditions for being considered a dependent of your parent are:

  • You are age 23 or younger at the end of the calendar year.
  • You were enrolled as a student in at least 5 calendar months (doesn’t have to be consecutive).
  • You lived with your parents for at least half the year (being away for educational reasons can count as living with them).
  • You are not filing a joint return (with a caveat).
  • You must meet the “Support Test”: You did not provide more than half of your own support in the calendar year (see Publication 17 Worksheet 3-1).

For any years that the first three points above apply to you, you should fill out the Support Test to determine if you provided enough of your own support to qualify as independent. Keep in mind that education expenses count as “support” that you needed, but scholarships and fellowships that paid that support don’t count as being provided by you, the student.

You’re (Mostly) Not Paying FICA Tax

FICA (Social Security and Medicare) taxes seem like an unavoidable burden for employees and self-employed people. But even if you’re an employee of your university (i.e., you receive a W-2 at tax time), you’re most likely not paying FICA tax because you have a student exemption. This exemption depends on both the primary function of the organization that employs you (i.e., educational) and your primary relationship with the organization (i.e., as a student rather than an employee).

The student exemption is almost universal for graduate students, but I have come across two exceptions that depend heavily on the exact wording of the exemption:

1) Graduate students at research institutions that are not primarily universities might not receive the exemption.

2) Graduate students, even at universities, whose primary relationship with their employer is as an employee rather than a student may pay FICA tax. For example, this might occur during the summer vs. during the academic year, and could happen without the student even perceiving a difference in roles. (This is not common, but I have seen it a few times.)

Graduate students receiving fellowships also do not pay FICA tax, but that is because they are not receiving wages rather than due to their student status.

You Cannot Take the Saver’s Credit

The Saver’s Credit is a very valuable credit that low-income earners can take if they contribute to a retirement account, such as an IRA. However, full-time students are not eligible for the credit.

Yes, there are a lot of weird tax situations for fully funded grad students. You have to do a bit of legwork instead of just blindly entering numbers from your 1098-T into tax software or ignoring your excess scholarship income. But if you break the issues down one by one, it’s actually straightforward to determine how to resolve them.

Do I Owe Income Tax on My Fellowship?

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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:

How to Prepare Your Grad Student Tax Return (Tax Year 2024)

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It’s common for funded graduate students to be a bit intimidated by preparing their own tax returns, particularly if they are inexperienced in doing so. The sources of PhD student funding, namely fellowship stipends and the scholarships or waivers that pay tuition and fees, are rather unusual, so most people and even most professional tax preparers don’t have any experience with them. The strategies that apply for undergraduate-level taxes are pretty different from those that apply for graduate-level taxes. But learning how to prepare your grad student tax return isn’t actually difficult, nor are the resulting steps complicated. There’s no reason to be intimidated! This post covers the essential points you need to know to prepare your grad student tax return, whether you do it manually, with tax software, or with the help of another person.

grad student tax return

This post is for tax year 2024. This post only covers federal tax due for graduate students in the United States who are citizens, permanent residents, or residents for tax purposes; you may have additional state and local tax due. I am detailing only the aspects of preparing your grad student tax return that are specific to higher education; I am not covering more general tax information that applies to the population at large.

This article is for educational purposes only and does not constitute tax, legal, or financial advice advice. It was last updated on 1/17/2025. For more tax content, visit the Personal Finance for PhDs Tax Center.

Table of Contents (Links)

Preliminary Remarks

This post is a step-by-step guide on how to prepare your grad student tax return. I want to clear up some confusion right up front so that you can work your way through the guide without becoming sidetracked.

All of your income is potentially taxable. The purpose of your tax return is to show that you don’t have to pay tax on all of it. What graduate students don’t often realize is that they have income sources aside from the one(s) that hits their bank accounts or is reported on an official tax document, and they need to deal with those incomes on their tax returns.

You have your stipend/salary that serves as your take-home pay; this is potentially taxable, even if you don’t receive an official tax form about it and you didn’t have any taxes withheld. In fact, I’ll say you’re very likely to end up owing tax on it unless it’s quite low and/or you have a lot of tax deductions and/or credits.

You also have another kind of potentially taxable income if you are funded: the money that pays your tuition, fees, and other education expenses. Your university might refer to this as scholarships, waivers, remissions, etc. Even if this money never passes through your personal bank account, it does pass through your name via your student account, which makes it potentially taxable to you as an individual. There is a very high chance you can use an education tax benefit to reduce your taxable income and/or reduce your tax due, but you have to sit down and do the arithmetic on it, not just assume that you won’t owe any tax on it. (In fact, doing the arithmetic may very well help you pay even less tax than if you ignored it!) This guide shows you exactly how to do that.

Further reading:

This article includes publicly available information on taxes for students and fellowship recipients, largely derived from IRS Publication 970 and my examinations of the tax policies of many universities across the US.

If you want a more in-depth and intuitive presentation of this material, designed for you to prepare your tax return as you go through it, that includes my interpretations of the tricky IRS language and the insight I gained from hiring a CPA to research grad student taxes…

Please consider joining my tax workshop. It comprises pre-recorded videos, worksheets, and live Q&A calls with me.

Click here to learn more about the grad student tax return workshop.

Collect All Your Income Sources

The first step to prepare your grad student tax return, and any tax return, is to collect all your income sources. These income sources include wages as well as non-wage income such as interest and investment income and self-employment income, but does not include loan disbursements.

With respect to your grad student status, you have income sources that are unusual and may be officially reported to you or not (so check for all of them):

  1. Your employee income for your stipend or salary will be reported to you on a Form W-2. This typically comes from a teaching assistantship, research assistantship, or graduate assistantship.
  2. Your awarded income that pays your stipend or salary may be reported to you on a 1098-T in Box 5, on a 1099-MISC in Box 3, on a Form 1099-NEC in Box 1, on a 1099-G in Box 6, on a courtesy letter, or not at all. Awarded income typically comes from fellowships, training grants, and awards. If your university does not send you any documentation of your fellowship income for 2024, you have to sum all the payments you received to figure out what it was.
  3. Your awarded income that pays your education expenses may be reported to you on a 1098-T in Box 5 or not at all. Awarded income typically comes from scholarships, waivers, remissions, and awards. If you did not receive a 1098-T from your university, you should look at the transactions in your student account (e.g., Bursar’s account, Cashier’s account) to see the money posted there on your behalf.

Your university may not use the exact terminology that I did, but the tax forms and documentation (or lack thereof) will help you differentiate among the three types.

Further reading:

At this stage, you may be thinking that the total of all this income is way too high. There’s no way you want to pay tax on all this income! Stick with me: We are going to reduce either your taxable income or your tax due in a subsequent step. But for now, work with all of your incomes.

Would you like the opportunity to ask me a question about your tax situation? I hold monthly live Q&A calls throughout tax season for my workshop participants!

Click here to learn more about the tax return workshop.

Categorize Your Income

Your grad student income (assistantship pay, fellowships, scholarships, etc.) falls into two broad categories: employee income and awarded income.

Employee income is easy to define, as you will receive a Form W-2 for it.

Awarded income is best defined as any grad student-related income that is reported somewhere other than a W-2 or not reported. According to the IRS, it is “various types of educational assistance you may receive if you are studying, teaching, or researching in the United States… includ[ing] scholarships, fellowship grants, need-based education grants, qualified tuition reductions” (Publication 970 p. 5), but the way the IRS uses those terms doesn’t completely match how we use the terms in academia.

Decide Which Education Tax Benefit(s) to Use on Your Grad Student Tax Return

For tax year 2024, there are two* relevant education tax benefits that you can access to reduce your tax burden: making awarded income tax-free and the Lifetime Learning Credit.

You use your qualified education expenses (QEEs) to take a deduction (by making your awarded income tax-free) or take a credit (by taking the Lifetime Learning Credit). A tax deduction reduces your taxable income, while a tax credit reduces your tax due directly. You can apply either one or both of these benefits, but you have to use different QEE dollars.

(* There is one more education tax benefit, the American Opportunity Tax Credit, which is each beneficial for a very small percentage of graduate students. See the section at the end of the article for more details on this benefit and whether it might apply to you.)

Generally speaking, graduate students should make their awarded income tax-free to the greatest extent possible before applying any remaining QEEs to the Lifetime Learning Credit; this is how tax software will prepare your return. However, some graduate students may be eligible to prioritize the Lifetime Learning Credit (or the American Opportunity Tax Credit) over making awarded income tax-free to further reduce their tax liability (could be worth hundreds of dollars); this scenario is discussed in detail inside my tax workshop.

Qualified Education Expenses

The definition of a QEE changes slightly for each tax benefit. From Publication 970 p. 4:

“Even though the same term, such as qualified education expenses, is used to label a basic component of many of the education benefits, the same expenses aren’t necessarily allowed for each benefit.”

Tuition at an eligible education institution is a QEE for both tax benefits (although to make awarded income tax-free you have to be a degree candidate). “Required fees” are QEEs for making awarded income tax-free. The Lifetime Learning Credit uses the wording “the fees and expenses [that] must be paid to the institution for enrollment or attendance” to define a QEE. Other fees and expenses beyond tuition may be QEEs; you should refer to the definition of a QEE with respect to each benefit.

If you received a 1098-T from your university, Box 1 will contain the sum of the payments for your the “qualified tuition and related expenses” that were processed by the office at your university that prepared the form. You may have additional QEEs not reported on the Form 1098-T, because the qualified tuition and related expenses on Form 1098-T do not include “charges and fees for room, board, insurance, medical expenses (including student health fees), transportation, and similar personal, living, or family expenses” (Form 1098-T Instructions, p. 2)

Further reading: What Is a 1098-T?

Whether you received a 1098-T or not, you should examine the transactions in your student account to make the final determination about the qualified education expenses that were processed by that office.

You may have additional QEEs not reported on your 1098-T or in your student account, such as required course-related expenses (keep your receipts!).

It’s very worthwhile to examine the definition of a QEE because uncovering additional QEEs almost always translates to a lower tax liability.

Make Awarded Income Tax-Free

The awarded income that you receive can directly cancel against your QEEs to become tax-free. For example, if the tuition that you are charged and the scholarship or tuition reduction that pays it are exactly the same amount, they net to zero and you won’t be taxed on that portion of your awarded income. In fact, you don’t even have to show the IRS this calculation; you only have to report the portion of your awarded income that exceeds your QEEs.

The definition of a QEE to make awarded income tax-free is (excerpted from Publication 970 Chapter 1 p. 6):

Qualified education expenses. For purposes of tax-free scholarships and fellowship grants, these are expenses for:

  • Tuition and fees required to enroll at or attend an eligible educational institution; and
  • Course-related expenses, such as fees, books, supplies, and equipment that are required for the courses at the eligible educational institution. These items must be required of all students in your course of instruction.

Expenses that don’t qualify. Qualified education expenses don’t include the cost of:

  • Room and board,
  • Travel,
  • Research,
  • Clerical help, or
  • Equipment and other expenses that aren’t required for enrollment in or attendance at an eligible educational institution.“

Are you unsure whether one of your expenses is a “qualified education expense” to net against awarded income? In my tax workshop, I present the common higher education-related expenses that graduate students incur and tell you whether or not they are QEEs under each of the education tax benefits.

Click here to learn more about the tax return workshop.

Lifetime Learning Credit

The Lifetime Learning Credit reduces your tax burden and may be beneficial to apply if 1) your QEEs exceed your awarded income and/or 2) a 20% credit is more valuable to you than a deduction.

The Lifetime Learning Credit is a 20% credit; that means that if you use $1,000 in QEE expenses for the Lifetime Learning Credit, your tax due will be reduced by $200. There is a $10,000 limit on QEEs that can be used for the Lifetime Learning Credit, so the maximum benefit is $2,000 even if you have additional QEEs.

The modified adjust gross income phase-out for this deduction begins at $80,000 for a single person and $160,000 for a married couple filing jointly.

The definition of a QEE for the Lifetime Learning Credit is (excerpted from Publication 970 Chapter 3 p. 24, 28):

“Qualified Education Expenses

For purposes of the lifetime learning credit, qualified education expenses are tuition and certain related expenses required for enrollment in a course at an eligible educational institution. The course must be either part of a postsecondary degree program or taken by the student to acquire or improve job skills.

Related expenses. Student activity fees and expenses for course-related books, supplies, and equipment are included in qualified education expenses only if the fees and expenses must be paid to the institution for enrollment or attendance.

Expenses That Don’t Qualify

Qualified education expenses don’t include amounts paid for:

  • Insurance;
  • Medical expenses (including student health fees);
  • Room and board;
  • Transportation; or
  • Similar personal, living, or family expenses.

This is true even if the amount must be paid to the institution as a condition of enrollment or attendance.“

If you take the Lifetime Learning Credit, you must fill out and file Form 8863.

The Numbers You Need for Your Tax Return

Once you have decided how you would like to use your QEEs, you should bring a few numbers with you to enter into your federal tax return:

  • Your total amount of employee income (W-2 pay with respect to your grad student income),
  • Your net awarded income (after applying your QEEs to reduce it),
  • The amount of your Lifetime Learning Credit (maximum $2,000) from Form 8863, and
  • The amount of income tax you already paid, whether through withholding or estimated tax.

You now have an idea of the actions to take and decisions to make regarding your grad student tax return. I know it can seem overwhelming! I don’t want you to spend hours and hours feeling frustrated paging through IRS documentation or wrestling with tax software.

Commit a couple hours to taking my tax return workshop, feel confident and supported, and emerge with an accurate and minimized tax return!

Click here to learn more about the grad student tax return workshop.

Fill Out Your Grad Student Tax Return

With respect to your taxable grad student income, Lifetime Learning Credit, and tax already paid, how to report them on your tax return is very straightforward. Of course, you will fill out the rest of your tax return by following the form instructions; this section only relates to the grad student aspects of your return.

Report Your Income

Write your employee income (reported on your Form W-2) on Form 1040 Line 1a.

Write your taxable awarded income on Form 1040 Schedule 1 Line 8r. (This dedicated line is new as of 2022!)

Further reading: Where to Report Your PhD Trainee Income on Your Tax Return

Report Your Lifetime Learning Credit

Report your Lifetime Learning Credit on Line 3 of Form 1040 Schedule 3; you will also file Form 8863. The amount of this credit will directly reduce your tax due.

Report Your Tax Already Paid

If you received a Form W-2 and/or Form 1099 for part or all of your grad student income, you will enter the amount of federal tax that was withheld from your income in Line 25 of Form 1040. There are different parts of the line depending on which form was used.

Further reading: The Complete Guide to Quarterly Estimated Tax for Fellowship Recipients

If you paid quarterly estimated tax on your fellowship income, report the total of the estimated tax payments you made in Line 26 of Form 1040.

Other Education Tax Benefits

I have omitted from detailed discussion two education tax benefits that you may be familiar with from past experiences preparing your tax return.

American Opportunity Tax Credit

The American Opportunity Tax Credit is typically used during the undergraduate years only. It can be claimed in only 4 tax years and not in any tax year after the one in which you finish your first four years of postsecondary education. Therefore, if you graduated from college in 2024 (in four years) and you (or your parents) claimed the American Opportunity Tax Credit in no more than 3 previous tax years (e.g., freshman spring/sophomore fall, sophomore spring/junior fall, and junior spring/senior fall but not freshman fall), you may be eligible to claim it for 2024.

The American Opportunity Tax Credit is the most valuable education tax benefit available, so if you are eligible for it, you will almost certainly want to use it to the greatest degree you can. It is a 100% credit on up to $2,000 of QEEs and a 25% credit on up to $2,000 of QEEs.

The definition of a QEE for the American Opportunity Tax Credit is distinct from the definition for other education tax benefits.

If you claim the American Opportunity Tax Credit, you cannot use the Lifetime Learning Credit or the Tuition and Fees Deduction. If you are considered a dependent on your parents’ tax return in 2024, you cannot claim the credit (your parents would).

To claim the American Opportunity Tax Credit, you need to fill out and file Form 8863.

Tuition and Fees Deduction

The Tuition and Fees Deduction expired at the end of 2020.

Would you like the opportunity to ask me a question about your tax situation? I hold monthly live Q&A calls throughout tax season for my workshop participants!

Click here to learn more about the tax return workshop.

If You Were Under Age 24

If you were age 23 or younger on December 31, 2024 and a full-time student for at least five months of the year, you may be subject to an alternative, higher tax known as the Kiddie Tax. This could be the case if your income was primary awarded income.

Further reading: Fellowship Income Can Trigger the Kiddie Tax

As a full-time student (for at least part of 5 calendar months) and under age 24, your parents (or another relative) might also be able to claim you as a dependent, though you will have to pass the ‘residency test’ and ‘support test.’

One entire module of my tax return workshop is devoted to the special tax considerations of graduate students under the age of 24. Please consider joining the workshop for much more details about the Kiddie Tax and dependency.

Click here to learn more about the tax return workshop.

Conclusion

The most challenging aspect of this process is simply knowing the various aspects that you have to consider. The most complicated aspect is collecting and categorizing all of your income sources and education expenses.

Best of luck to you as you prepare your grad student tax return this year! If you need additional support:

  1. Download my tax “cheat sheet”
  2. Register for my workshop (includes live Q&As!) for only $34

Please consider sharing this post with your peers through social media or a list-serv!

Financial Reasons to Work Before Starting Your PhD

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College students who aspire to earn PhDs often ask themselves if they should proceed directly from undergrad into a PhD program or take a year or more “off” to work. From a career perspective, there are some arguments on either side (and it’s probably field-dependent), though personally I think it’s better to not go straight from college to grad school. However, from a financial perspective, working for at least a year prior to starting grad school is a slam-dunk better choice – provided you handle your salary the right way in the meantime.

I’ll assume in this article that you’re earning more in your post-college job than you will as a grad student. I know that’s not always the case (my postbac fellowship paid a stipend comparable to that of a grad student), and if it’s not true for you, simply pick and choose the advice that works for you.

This article provides financial arguments for working prior to starting a PhD and gives you a strategy to combat the biggest potential downside to doing so. Working before starting a PhD program gives you the best shot at starting grad school (and the rest of your life) on the right financial foot.

Save Cash for Start-Up Expenses

Starting grad school, especially if you have to move to do so, is a cash-intensive endeavor. It can be done on the cheap depending on your city, but you are looking at paying for much or all of this before receiving your first grad student paycheck:

  • Moving expenses
  • First month’s rent (maybe last as well)
  • Security deposits, installation fees, and/or service fees for housing and utilities
  • All your normal living expenses like food, transportation and personal care for a month or more
  • Fees (and possibly tuition) if not covered by your program, e.g., parking or an insurance premium
  • Textbooks and other course-related expenses

Those expenses are similar to any that you would incur if you moved for a job, but in addition you have the educationally-related ones and you most likely will wait over one month for your first paycheck to arrive instead of the two weeks to one month typical for a job.

If you work prior to starting grad school, you have the opportunity to save for those start-up expenses. If you don’t have enough savings available when you matriculate, you’ll start grad school already feeling financially behind.

Build a Strong Financial Foundation

Working prior to starting grad school also means you can improve your overall financial health compared to where you were when you finished undergrad. You can work on one or more of these goals right away:

  • Saving cash for an emergency fund and short-term irregular expenses
  • Paying down debt (prioritize high interest rate debt such as credit cards and unsubsidized student loans)
  • Contributing to a tax-advantaged retirement account such as a 401(k) or IRA

Starting grad school doesn’t necessarily mean stalling financially, but it is easier to make progress with a salary intended to do more than pay basic living expenses.

Further reading:

Investing for Retirement

I already mentioned retirement saving above, but it’s worth emphasizing again. Saving for retirement during grad school is a challenge. This is due primarily to your limited cash flow, but in addition grad students are sometimes disallowed from contributing to any kind of tax-advantaged retirement account due to their income type. If you receive only fellowship income throughout an entire calendar year, you will not be able to contribute to an IRA. It is also exceedingly rare for a grad student to have access to a workplace-based retirement account like a 403(b).

Further reading: Taxable Compensation or Earned Income

Getting an early start on retirement investing will make an enormous difference in your account balances once you reach retirement. For example, if you work for one year until age 23 and contribute $1,000 per month to a retirement account, just that $12,000 contribution alone can grow to approximately $434,000 by the time you are 68 (assuming an 8% average annual rate of return.

Further reading: Whether You Save During Grad School Can Have a $1,000,000 Effect on Your Retirement

If you have to slow down or stop retirement investing during grad school, you can still feel good about the investments you already have in place that are working for you in the background.

If your employer provides a retirement match, please contribute enough to get the full match! It’s going to be a long time before that opportunity comes around again.

Applying Everywhere that Is a Fit

Grad school applications can easily cost over $1,000 between the direct application fees and indirect costs like taking the GRE. If you are working when you apply instead of doing it during college, you will have more money (and time) to apply and visit everywhere that is a good fit for you. It would be such a shame for a low budget for applications to constrain your career choices.

Further reading: The Full Cost of Applying to PhD Programs

Start a (Passive) Side Hustle

Side hustling during grad school is a great way to earn some extra income, maintain an identity and emotional outlet separate from your research, and potentially improve your post-PhD career prospects. But when you’re busy with research, classes, and/or teaching, it can be difficult to put in the time and energy needed to get your side hustle off the ground.

It’s much easier to maintain a side hustle you established prior to starting grad school (or you could continue some aspect of your job as a side hustle). An ideal side hustle for someone anticipating entering grad school is one that is location-independent and time-flexible.

The perfect side income for a grad student is not a “hustle” at all but passive income. Passive income comes in many forms, but requires an up-front investment of time or money to establish the income stream with little to no additional work required on an ongoing basis.

Minimize Your Tax Burden

In our current low tax environment, I don’t talk about tax planning, that is, changing your behavior due to the tax implications. I don’t like to let the “tail” of tax repercussions wag the “dog” of the rest of your life. However, in this case, I want you to at least be aware of the tax implications of starting a PhD program right away vs. waiting a year or two.

There are two big tax effects of having a “student” status (i.e., being a full time student in at least part of five months in the calendar year) and also being young (i.e., 23 or younger on 12/31 of the year in question).

Dependent

Normally, being considered a dependent of your parents expires at age 18, but students can be claimed as dependents up until the year they turn 24. Generally speaking, being claimed as a dependent is bad news for your tax return and good news for your parents’ tax return (or whoever is claiming you).

There are a few ways to avoid dependency status in the year you exit undergrad and/or the year you enter grad school, all of which can be more easily accomplished by working in between:

  • Live apart from your parents for at least six months of the year you finish undergrad (assuming you graduate in the spring) and continue to do so until the year you turn 24 (at least).
  • Wait to start grad school until at least the year in which you turn 24.
  • Provide at least half of your own “support.” Support is basically all your expenses, both living expenses and educational expenses. If you provide at least half of that support through your own income (taxable fellowships and loans count, but scholarships do not), you are independent. This is much easier to accomplish if you earn a higher income and minimize your educational expenses in any year that you are under age 24.

Kiddie Tax

The Kiddie Tax is bad news for the “kid” subject to it (that’s you, potentially) as it imposes a much higher tax rate on “unearned” income than what you would have on ordinary income. Weirdly and unfortunately, fellowship income is considered “unearned.” If you are a student, under age 24, and do not provide more than half of your own “support” with ”earned” income, your “unearned” income is subject to this higher tax rate. You do not have to be a dependent for the Kiddie Tax to apply to you.

How do you avoid the Kiddie Tax through tax planning? 1) You can wait to start grad school until the year you turn 24. 2) If you start grad school prior to the year you turn 24, make sure you have enough “earned” income in each year you are a student to cover at least half of your own “support.” Keep in mind that “support” includes educational expenses.

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How to Make the Most of Your Salary and Start Grad School on the Right Financial Foot

Have you ever heard the advice to “live like a college student” or “live like a resident?” Take that a step further and “live like a grad student” in your working years prior to starting grad school.

Further reading: Is “Live Like a College Student” Good Advice?

The advantages to living like a grad student when you have a job are three-fold:

  1. You will get a head start on the essential financial skills you’ll need during grad school, such as budgeting, frugality, and saving.
  2. You will rapidly increase your net worth through saving and/or debt repayment because you will be living far below your means.
  3. You will avoid experiencing the very painful process of decreasing your standard of living when you enter grad school.

Living like a grad student when you have a better-paying job is definitely a sacrifice, but it’s one that is well worth it. I often speak to grad students who worked prior to starting grad school, and their common refrain is “I wish I had saved more when I had the chance!”

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

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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 2019 PhD Trainee Tax Return (and Understand It, Too!).”

grad student tax return step