UCSB grad students walk out to protest GOP tax plan

“Hey hey! Ho ho! Tax hikes have got to go!”

Graduate students at UCSB walked out of their classes, office hours and research labs today to protest the House GOP tax plan.

They joined frustrated students across the country who had organized for the same cause. The House tax plan would end tax breaks on tuition waivers for graduate students, making it harder for many to pursue a graduate degree.

The UC Student Workers Union had a large presence at the rally, wearing red shirts and providing paint bucket drums and bullhorns.

Students and faculty took the stage to express the importance of graduate research to all fields of education in the U.S. and explain how the tax plan would take away research funding for students.

“We’re already paid a pittance as graduate students,” said Katharine Dickson, a Ph.D. student at the university studying neuroscience and developmental biology. “This is definitely vastly out of proportion to the work that we do and the contributions that we make to American society already.”

According to the American Council on Education, 145,000 graduate students in the U.S. are currently receiving waivers for teaching or research.

Listen to Press Play on how the tax plan affects grad students, and those with student debt: