U of California Grad Students Strike

[dismalist]

Like I said, $25 an hour in California seems to have about the purchasing power of a third of that in other states, so it might not be so exorbitant as it seems in context.  Especially, as Para notes, if it's meant to be a leader for haggling.  Whether the university can find that kind of money is another question.

Just like the mice deciding who would put the bell on the cat was another question.

Shouldn't be a problem: Budget constraints are socially constructed. :-)

[marshwiggle]

Like I said, $25 an hour in California seems to have about the purchasing power of a third of that in other states, so it might not be so exorbitant as it seems in context.  Especially, as Para notes, if it's meant to be a leader for haggling.  Whether the university can find that kind of money is another question.

Just like the mice deciding who would put the bell on the cat was another question.

Shouldn't be a problem: Budget constraints are socially constructed. :-)

Just like currency. :)

[Parasaurolophus]

Indeed, those are socially constructed. Unless you think they're natural kinds?

That doesn't mean they aren't real, or are unconstrained.

[marshwiggle]

Indeed, those are socially constructed. Unless you think they're natural kinds?

That doesn't mean they aren't real, or are unconstrained.

That's exactly what all of the exclusive focus on cost-of-living implies. How much people get paid isn't simply a whim of the employer. It is very much constrained by finances.

[downer]

If they can't afford to pay workers a reasonable wage, then whole institution is not viable. Time to radically rethink higher ed. It is largely a sham anyway.

[financeguy]

These people are going to get a rude awakening when they find out the disparity post-graduation between fields with actual market demand and fields that serve as a way to delay entering adulthood.

[Hibush]

Indeed, those are socially constructed. Unless you think they're natural kinds?

That doesn't mean they aren't real, or are unconstrained.

That's exactly what all of the exclusive focus on cost-of-living implies. How much people get paid isn't simply a whim of the employer. It is very much constrained by finances.

I don't think sensible people asking for livable stipends are ignoring the financial constraints. Regardless of the ultimate source of funds (endowment income, undergrad tuition, direct State support, Federal grants are the common ones), increasing the stipend will reduce the number of graduate students.

On the whole, reducing the number so that the ones who remain can have enough to focus on their work will be a good thing. Much healthier for higher education and the students who do get in.

Students who don't get funded will have to find something else. Their complaints to universities will be short-lived (since they will soon do something else) and easy to ignore (since they are not part of the institution). Or they will do a degree in a subject where paying full freight is the norm, like law or allied computer science.

[jimbogumbo]

mleok could tell us what the math TAs and Das make now. I'm guessing it's around $40k.

[jimbogumbo]

mleok could tell us what the math TAs and Das make now. I'm guessing it's around $40k.

I meant RAs. How did it turn into DAs?

[marshwiggle]

mleok could tell us what the math TAs and Das make now. I'm guessing it's around $40k.

I meant RAs. How did it turn into DAs?

Drudgery Assistants?

[Puget]

In many lab/STEM fields, it would just get absorbed into grant requests.

M.

Not really unfortunately.
(a) NIH and NSF have set grad student (and postdoc) fellowship rates. It is hard to justify budgeting more than that rate for a grad student.
(b) Grant budgets are capped (e.g., $500k/year in direct costs for R01s), and these caps have not changed in many years, so they have not kept up with inflation.

I very much agree that we need to raise stipends for grad students across the board, but unfortunately there isn't a magic pool of money for this, in grants or elsewhere.

[research_prof]

If federal agencies double the amount of money they give to PIs, I would be happy to budget $50K for the stipend of a PhD student per year. Until that time comes, it is not realistic to expect grants to pay $50K per year for the salary of a PhD student. It is simply infeasible.

[Hibush]

(a) NIH and NSF have set grad student (and postdoc) fellowship rates. It is hard to justify budgeting more than that rate for a grad student.
(b) Grant budgets are capped (e.g., $500k/year in direct costs for R01s), and these caps have not changed in many years, so they have not kept up with inflation.

You can definitely budget higher for grad stipends if the university sets a higher rate. So institutions have some role in this. There is a nice chart comparing the living wage with biology stipends that shows some huge disparities. Some schools are making adjustments to stay even with what they consider to be the competition for grad students. (Some don't think that way at all, but indentured servitude may be a community tradition.)

A higher stipend shoud still be possible under the R01 cap. I'm in in a field with grant programs that cap at $500k for three years including IDC. That just about covers a grad student with a few supplies. Those caps need to go up!

[Puget]

(a) NIH and NSF have set grad student (and postdoc) fellowship rates. It is hard to justify budgeting more than that rate for a grad student.
(b) Grant budgets are capped (e.g., $500k/year in direct costs for R01s), and these caps have not changed in many years, so they have not kept up with inflation.

You can definitely budget higher for grad stipends if the university sets a higher rate. So institutions have some role in this. There is a nice chart comparing the living wage with biology stipends that shows some huge disparities. Some schools are making adjustments to stay even with what they consider to be the competition for grad students. (Some don't think that way at all, but indentured servitude may be a community tradition.)

A higher stipend shoud still be possible under the R01 cap. I'm in in a field with grant programs that cap at $500k for three years including IDC. That just about covers a grad student with a few supplies. Those caps need to go up!

Its good to know some have been successful in exceeding the stipend rates in budgeting-- I have heard from other that they have gotten push-back when trying to budget over those rates. I've more often heard of institutions "topping-up" the grant funded stipends.

How far $500k/year goes is really field dependent. If you're primary expense is personnel that is quite different than if there are substantial (and inflexible) research costs.  In my field, MPI grants have also become the norm, which means you are splitting that budget with at least one other person/site.

Like I said, I fully support raising stipend levels, it just won't be easy to find the money.

[Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert]

Suppose the strikers win. What makes anyone think that State funding will expand to keep the same number of graduate students?

This may trigger a rethink about how many grad students should be around in expensive places and whether some of their duties (both teaching and research) should be performed by employees instead - looks like a good outcome to me.

This is an opportunity for universities located in other States to expand, while offering lower wages than California.

Hardly a bad outcome either.