I came across an analysis of the tax reform bill in which its author suggests that tuition paid by a school or scholarship will be treated as taxable income under the new rules, and wasn't under the old rules.
If that’s correct, then a graduate student who receives a $20,000 stipend for being a teaching assistant, plus a $40,000 tuition waiver, will have to pay taxes on an income of $60,000.
It seems to me that all the change is doing is saying that if you did not actually pay the tuition yourself, you cannot deduct the tuition from your income, which, from my understanding, can only be reduced by $2,500 under the current rules.