I'm a graduate student attending UC Irvine. Tuition and fees are deductible, and I receive a "tuition statement." It tells me how much I've received from my fellowship for tuition+fees+living expenses and then how much I've paid in tuition+fees (which is the tax deductible part). I made about $29,000 from my fellowship and paid about $15000 in tuition+fees, leaving about $14000 in taxable income. Sounds fine at first. This isn't counting the lifetime learning credit, moving expenses, and other things that I'm deducting this year (including a W2 form from my job). This post is purely regarding my tuition statement and a potential discrepancy on the amount reported as deductible income.
I decided I'd go online and compare my student bills with the tuition statement. I noticed that I paid an additional $1600 in fees that was not reported on my tuition statement. I went back and calculated the numbers, and there was only one fee that was not included. It was the GSHIP Fee.
As part of being a graduate student, I am required to pay a "GSHIP Fee" for about $800 every 3 months ($1600 last year, I'm a new grad student). The GSHIP is graduate student health insurance, and you can't opt out of it. I noticed that my tuition+fee statement was not including this GSHIP Fee - in other words, I think I should be able to deduct $16600 instead of $15000. It's listed right on my Bursar's account, right along side other fees like Student Center Construction Fee and tuition.
I've e-mailed a few people (in my department's graduate affairs office) asking about this just now, but I wanted to ask some ATOT tax gurus about it as well. Would there be any reason for the "GSHIP Fee" to not be tax deductible? It's not optional. If you're a graduate student in the physics department, you get charged for it one way or another (just like any other fee - student center fee for a student center I don't use, athletics center fee for an athletics center I don't use, etc. etc.)