4 ms·
> Given the hours they work, it is still most common for them to be on the books as part-time employees (0.49 full-time) which cuts off access to employee spons
by kevindong 9y ago
> Given the hours they work, it is still most common for them to be on the books as part-time employees (0.49 full-time) which cuts off access to employee sponsored health care that is mandated under the ACA. In almost all cases they have no benefits outside of tuition payment.
As far as I'm aware, all reputable American colleges will do the following for graduate students who are teaching assistants: 1) waive tuition 2) pay for the majority of a health insurance plan 3) issue a modest living stipend that's enough to live on, albeit not very comfortably. I know this is the case for Purdue.
- munin 9y agoMany won't pay for health insurance, or if they do, it is the health insurance that only gets you access to the student health center, which is basically just a dispenser of tylenol and condoms. Most will waive "tuition" but won't waive "fees" which can still be substantial (10% of your take home pay, in my case). This was at a top-10-for-CS grad program.
- TJSomething 9y agoMy experience in my CS MS was that there was ~50% discount on tuition, a subsidized health insurance plan, and not quite enough to live on.
- secabeen 9y agoMS is often a different deal that PhD or MS/PhD.
- Fomite 9y agoIndeed, in my field, terminal Masters students are a profit center.
- azinman2 9y agoTop tier usesally doesn’t have terminal MS. MS means you didn’t cut it or you want out. In either case they pay you.
- luckydude 9y agoI think that's not completely accurate. In physics and math and probably other hard science disciplines, yeah, you are correct, a masters means "thanks but you're not gonna make it to a PhD". I have a masters in Computer Science from UW-Madison and I had nothing to do with the PhD track. I just wanted more learning and the CS department was happy to provide it. There was no stigma associated with a masters degree there and it's definitely helped me in my career.
- gehwartzen 9y agoThat was the case at VCU and every other state school I looked at in VA. Only for Science/Engineering though. All other subjects had very few if any TA/RA positions and a ton of people competing to get them. About 10 years ago the stipends were around 25-35k/year. Plenty to live off of in Richmond or Charlottesville.
- djsumdog 9y agoMy masters program offered really affordable health care to students (both undergrad and grad). That was around 2005 though. Not sure if that's still the case.
- spaceseaman 9y agoThese are precisely the kinds of things that unions will fight for though. Just assuming that the university (out of its goodwill?) will do any of those things is kind of ludicrous. At my university, we had to fight tooth and nail (we had a union) to get the university to improve our health insurance and full waive our tuition (They did a tricky thing where they would waive all people with 50% TA-ships, and then they gave everyone a 49% one. Universities are not noble, altruistic actors. Far far from it)
- mathattack 9y agoThese things come at a cost. If the cost of grad students goes up, we'll see some combination of the following: 1 - Less grad students. 2 - More undergrads doing the work of grad students. 3 - More adjuncts doing the work of grad students. 4 - Grad students being asked to do more. The irony is this is happening at the great home of Price Theory!
- Ar-Curunir 9y agoThe cost could be offset by administrators not taking a huge cut. Quite literally these administrators do nothing of worth; it's the work of grad students and not-yet-tenured professors that keeps universities rhnning., Not the endless circles of bureaucrats
- alphaalpha101 9y agoI don't think it's at all ironic that the home of the failed ideology of neoliberalism is the place this is happening.