The graduate teaching assistants went on strike two weeks before final exams were to be administered at the University of Illinois, Chicago. After their previous contract expired, union representatives had been at the bargaining table with the university for a year, trying to negotiate a new contract. The two sides hadn't been able to reach an agreement.
The strike ended just before midnight on 25 April after a tentative deal was reached. The raise will bring the stipend up to a guaranteed minimum over the next 3 years. They secured limits on increases to student fees, which can eat away up to $4500 of their take- home pay.
Students have decried miserly wages for a long time. There is no question that students are struggling to survive, according to a student at the University of Florida.
A third of our students struggle to afford rent and 15% struggle to afford food. A national survey of 3000 graduate students conducted in 2020 found that more than one-quarter of respondents suffered from housing or food insufficiency.
The universities are trying to address the situation. The total annual stipend for the students in the natural sciences and engineering program at the university will increase to $40,000 when the next academic year begins in 2022. In addition to the $7500 subsidy for the first child and $2500 for each additional child, Yale University announced last month that graduate students in the sciences will receive a $2000 increase in their annual paychecks.
The steps do not immediately or fully solve the problem. I can tell you that my living expenses have gone up more than our salaries have gone up.
Graduate students at universities across the country are picking up protest signs. In California, where the largest protests have taken place so far this year, representatives of the University of California graduate workers unions are currently at the bargaining table, asking for pay increases that reflect the high cost of living in the state. A biology student at UC Davis says that more than 90 percent of UC student employees pay more than 30% of their wage on rent. It shouldn't be that only people from wealthy background can make it in academia.
Some policies and stipend minimums are determined at the institution level, with some departments paying more than others. In Florida, Gaynor has tried to start conversations about graduate student salaries by using data from the stipends. She asked biology researchers in other countries to send her information about the minimum guaranteed stipend for graduate students. The minimum stipend in her current data set is roughly $27,000, which is less than many other programs, but she went on to meet with her department chair and send the data to the rest of her department.
The data that programs handle student tuition, fees, and health insurance premiums differently can be helpful in negotiations. She says that presenting these data led to a raise $1000 higher than what the department had originally offered.
The department hasn't budged on stipend levels.
There are calls for raises in Canada. They have not had a raise in nearly 20 years.
The standard for graduate stipends across the country is set by the salary associated with those awards.
In addition to national discussions, Johnson says faculty members in his department are discussing raising graduate student stipends because of rising cost of living in Toronto, one of the most expensive cities in Canada. He says that they don't have a great solution on how it will happen, because their grants are not tracking inflation.
Some U.S. graduate students say that a few faculty members in their departments have found a way to use grant money to raise stipends. They say that other faculty members have questioned the need to give students a large raise because graduate students are already expensive and living on low wages. If you look at historical inflation, we are worse off right now.
Beyond that, she adds, "We don't think that's a healthy mindset, because why are we not working towards a better future for grad students?"
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