Washington, DC – United States Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), and Tim Scott (R-S.C.) today re-introduced the Graduate Student Savings Act of 2019, a bill to help graduate students start saving for their retirement by allowing funds from a graduate student’s stipend or fellowship to be deposited into an Individual Retirement Account (IRA).

Federal and state governments generally tax fellowship or stipend funding as income, which does not qualify as “compensation” and therefore cannot be saved in an IRA.

While a majority of doctoral students report receiving some of their financial support during graduate school from fellowships or grants, about a third of all students report that fellowships or grants were their primary source of funding. The median doctoral student also takes about seven years to finish a degree, potentially preventing students from saving portions of their income in a tax-advantaged account for a significant period of time. This bill would remove this unnecessary hurdle so that students and postdoctoral fellows can start saving a portion of their stipend in an IRA today. Read More

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