Are room and board grants taxable?

[BelknapPoint]

@brantly

The benefit of a work-study job is that the income is excluded in the calculation of financial aid in subsequent years.

Work-study income is also not subject to the FICA payroll tax.

[CT1417]

I will take that a step further and say that it appears that any university employment is not subject to FICA. My son worked as a TA, but he was not eligible for work study, and he did not need to pay FICA. Interestingly, when he worked that same TA job while on a gap year, he did have to pay FICA because he was not enrolled as a student during his gap year.