Do Graduate Assistants Earn a Living Wage? CHE article

[arcturus]

This article is currently behind a pay-wall: https://www.chronicle.com/article/Do-Graduate-Assistants-Earn-a/248169?cid=wcontentgrid_hp_4

The article is in the context of the graduate student strike at UC Santa Cruz, where the cost-of-living is high and graduate student stipends appear to be insufficient.

From the article:

Nationally, the estimated median annual wage for grad assistants is $33,700.

The Chronicle was able to identify only one metro area where the reported median earnings for a graduate assistant would have qualified as a living wage for a one-adult, one-child household. According to the bureau, graduate assistants in the metro area of Greenville, S.C., earned a median wage of $51,730. Glasmeier and her team found that a working parent with one child in Greenville needed to make at least $47,382 to satisfy the cost of living in 2018. (Colleges in that area include Clemson University and Furman University.)

These quoted stipends seem unusually high to me (unless they also include the cost of tuition). For example, the stipend for the NSF predoctoral fellowship is $34k, so I find it surprising that the median annual wage for grad assistants is as high as $33,700, as quoted above.  Also, the base rate at my institution is substantially below this (in a modest cost-of-living area).

Is the typical graduate student stipend really in the mid-30k range for most institutions?

Is the typical graduate student stipend at your institution sufficient for students to live (comfortably|reasonably|with lots of roommates to keep the costs down)?
While our stipends are lower than those quoted above, I do believe that our graduate students can live reasonably good lives (including expenses like eating out and going on vacation) with the financial support that we provide.

[Hibush]

Thanks for following up on that article.

For grad students, is it ok to still think of shared apartments as a norm? That was certainly an expectation in my day. The survey uses a single-person household. Using the two-person household cost makes many stipends sufficient for a living wage. 

Using the median rent in markets with bimodal rent distributions can make the cost seem high. For instance at UCLA, the median rent in neighboring Bel Air is $9,900 per month. Yet in the student-housing ghetto a 2-bedroom apartment is $1,000 per month.

Conversely, at Johns Hopkins the low-cost apartments may not be suitable for graduate students. The survey lists the stipend in Baltimore as one of the highest.

Most of the cities The Santa Cruz students are asking for an extra $1,500 per month. Very few places in the table show that kind of deficit.

[marshwiggle]

The Chronicle was able to identify only one metro area where the reported median earnings for a graduate assistant would have qualified as a living wage for a one-adult, one-child household. According to the bureau, graduate assistants in the metro area of Greenville, S.C., earned a median wage of $51,730. Glasmeier and her team found that a working parent with one child in Greenville needed to make at least $47,382 to satisfy the cost of living in 2018. (Colleges in that area include Clemson University and Furman University.)

That seems a very odd choice for "household". Is that the most common household among grad students?

[arcturus]

The article tabulates the "living wage" for single adults, two working adults, and one adult, one child in several cities. The paragraph I quoted referenced only the latter, since it is the most expensive option, and thus least likely to be achievable based on typical graduate student stipends in those locations.

[marshwiggle]

The article tabulates the "living wage" for single adults, two working adults, and one adult, one child in several cities. The paragraph I quoted referenced only the latter, since it is the most expensive option, and thus least likely to be achievable based on typical graduate student stipends in those locations.

Ah, OK. Still, it seems like "student life", including grad student life, can't be compared to "working life" simply, since it is , by definition, temporary. (Similarly, it would be ridiculous to compare the "living standards" at summer camp with those of homes.)

[tuxthepenguin]

Graduate assistant is not a permanent job. At every university I've worked or studied, the wage was enough for a single college student to get by, and that's what it's supposed to be, a little more than needed to survive. The retirement plan isn't that good either if we're going down this road.

[Caracal]

Conversely, at Johns Hopkins the low-cost apartments may not be suitable for graduate students. The survey lists the stipend in Baltimore as one of the highest.

Nah, Baltimore is quite affordable for a grad student and has lots of great apartments right around campus. Hopkins just has a lot of money.

[polly_mer]

non-paywalled CHE article link from Twitter

[apl68]

In the one city for which I have experience, Nashville, the living wage figures seem a little higher than necessary--but the actual median pay figures there would be pretty tough to get by on.  You'd be spending well over half your pay on rent for a one-bedroom apartment, even on the low end of the price scale, unless you somehow managed to find a fantastic deal.

When I was a single grad assistant at Vanderbilt in the 1990s the stipends just about amounted to a living wage.  But if your funding ran out mid-stream--as it usually did--you were looking at assistant work that nobody could come close to living on.  I'm talking less than then-minimum wage, if you put in all the uncompensated hours you were expected to work.  Between that work, moonlighting at the library, and trying to continue work on my PhD I was working appallingly long hours, and still had to borrow from parents who didn't have a whole lot to spare.

[spork]

Columbia GTAs now on strike:

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/04/28/columbia-tas-who-say-they-cant-pay-their-rent-due-covid-19-launch-work-stoppage.

[Anselm]

What I was paid was enough to get by under ideal conditions but not with my own reality.  With the student loans I did just fine.  As for living wage, there was no baseline budgeting to determine what someone really needs.  They just took last year's salary and added 3%.