Scholarships providing stipends for additional expenses beyond tuition and university fees are considered a taxable form of income, leaving some UNC students frustrated.
“My scholarship is not a job,” first-year Morehead-Cain scholar Addison Truzy said.
The Morehead-Cain Scholarship covers all expenses for its recipients during their four years at UNC. Beyond tuition and housing, a large part of the scholarship's stipend can be used for food, books, professional dress, club fees, research and internships, or can even be put into savings at the discretion of the scholar.
Without the Morehead-Cain Scholarship, Truzy said she would not have been able to afford college at all. Truzy said it is not fair to treat scholarships like a consistent payment when the money is used to cover necessary school expenses.
Being a student is a role, and not a paid one, she said.
Blue Sky scholar Sydney Young said she works two jobs — one on UNC’s campus and one off — on top of a scholarship that pays for her tuition. While the Blue Sky Scholarship is not taxed, Young said that taxing her scholarship would make college attendance "a lot more difficult."
"I make sure that every time I get my money I'm always budgeting, I'm setting aside certain portions, because I understand that while my scholarship covers everything this year, it might not cover everything next year, it might not cover everything the year after that," Young said.
Alyssa Williams, another first-year Morehead-Cain scholar, said the rules and regulations of scholarships can be hard to understand, especially for students like her whose families earn too much income for specific financial aid but not enough to pay full tuition.
Williams said that a lot of the miscommunication surrounding scholarship finances could be solved if University administration sat down and talked with scholarship recipients.
