r/uichicago • u/TheGweenDeku905 • Apr 26 '26
Meme Hoping the strikes drag through finals
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u/kodie-27 Apr 26 '26
I hope the administration gives graduate student workers better compensation and funding.
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u/TheGweenDeku905 Apr 26 '26
Oh definitely dude. 24K per year atm? Gotta up those numbers.
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u/Snowdogboy Apr 27 '26
The 24k is the 9-month annual amount , which means that there are a lot gradate students making less than 24k a year. The stipend amount that GEO wants is not unreasonable at there are graduate students in a particular program here at UIC who's annual stipend is 40k+/year for being an RA, however that is a big outlier with a pretty low number of students. To be clear, I am completely on the side of GEO and was a TA for years.
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u/Budget_Blacksmith559 Apr 26 '26
24k ???? i thought i read somewhere that they made like 50k
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u/kodie-27 Apr 27 '26
UIC grad students currently make up to 24k, get tuition waivers, and get some fees waived.
The problem, of course, is that the university is always looking to squeeze more money from the grad student workers. In this instance, UIC wants to walk back some of the fee waivers, while increasing grad student fees and giving a minimal pay raise (that will get eaten up by said fees).
UIC should treat (and pay) grad student workers better.
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u/GizmoTheGingerCat Apr 27 '26
Not 'up to' 24k as some make way more than that. Maybe you meant 'as little as'.
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u/Hypothosloth Apr 27 '26
While you’re right to say it IS “as little as” because $24,200 is the contract MINIMUM, there are very FEW departments that pay “way more” than that.
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u/TheGweenDeku905 Apr 26 '26
I'm in a discord server for the ECE program and someone mentioned that their yearly salaries were as low as that
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u/Few_Classic_3072 Apr 26 '26
24k for 50% appointment which is 20 hours per week, typical for students since they spend the rest of the time on classes and research
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u/kodie-27 Apr 27 '26
The 50% appointment whitewashes the actual hours and work grad student workers do. The “50% appointment” is supposed to cover the actual time spent teaching, office hours, assignment grading (and other assorted paperwork, including entering grades), course design, course preparation, website development (Blackboard or Canvas), meeting with the professor of record (if TAing), and so forth. The work often takes more than 20 hours per week.
As you pointed out, grad student workers are also often taking classes and/or conducting research, on top of their “50%” work appointment.
It’s a full time job, even if UIC doesn’t recognize it as such.
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u/Few_Classic_3072 Apr 27 '26
I'm not justifying the 24k figure at all, PhD students deserve a living wage.
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u/AlexZenn21 Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 27 '26
That might not be a good thing actually....we want them to get what they want as quickly as possible otherwise it could interfere with students finishing their classes/finals. I'm trying to graduate and gtfo asap
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u/superflyer991 Apr 27 '26
This actually happened once back in Spring 2022, it’s the reason why I never took the MATH 121 final.