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This article doesn't describe the problem very directly. I found this op-ed by a student to be more informative. https://www.dailycal.org/2022/04/08/a-personal

by lacker 4y ago

This article doesn't describe the problem very directly. I found this op-ed by a student to be more informative. https://www.dailycal.org/2022/04/08/a-personal-view-of-uc-berkeleys-eecs-crisis/ https://www.dailycal.org/2022/04/08/a-personal-view-of-uc-be... Ten years ago, the department graduated roughly 400 students with Bachelor’s degrees in EECS or computer science. This year, the number will probably be 1400, or roughly 15%, of all undergraduates. Almost all of that growth is in the College of Letters and Science CS major. and more specifically: The campus provides departments $50 per student-credit per hour to pay for both lecturers and TAs. A student in a 4-unit class contributes roughly $200 out of the student’s overall tuition for these expenses. Yet the actual cost to a department is more than $350 per student for that 4-unit class, forcing departments to find additional funds to cover the upward of $150 per student gap. [...] The EECS department is running an annual deficit of nearly $5 million. At a high level, this problem is "growing pains" rather than "falling backwards". Computer science is booming at Berkeley, and they can't hire enough TAs to keep up when they are paying so badly. I hope they simply start paying CS TAs better.

bhaney 4y ago
> I hope they simply start paying CS TAs better. Impossible. Students definitely don't pay more than $50 per credit hour in tuition, so there's nowhere for the university to get the additional funds from. Edit: This was sarcastic
- learndeeply 4y ago
  UC Berkeley has a $6 billion endowment. It's not impossible, but improbable.
- apengwin 4y ago
  the government and taxes presumably. I think higher education is a wonderful public investment with great returns.
TigeriusKirk 4y ago
There's a great deal of missing information in that accounting. With what they've provided, it's not clear that they need to pay TAs more.
forrestthewoods 4y ago
What a sad and embarrassing state of affairs. :( Tuition is $14,000 for in-state and and a laughable $44,000 for out-of-state. And they can’t find an extra $150 per student? Fire one worthless administrator and the $150 gap is completely covered. Voila!
- aidenn0 4y ago
  I'm sure the typical student takes 280 credits per year...
jxramos 4y ago
Aha, that makes more sense now. I was almost going to say is this really news? I thought the concept of an "impacted" major was a pretty old definition--it basically means there are more applicants than there are spaces. But this other bit of information about a growing slice of the student body pie electing for a hot and lucrative major.
murphyslab 4y ago
This reminds me of my alma mater. The provincial government previously had funded $X/student. Then they changed it to a fixed grant. Meanwhile, enrollment continued to expand; the institution saw the expansion as serving the public. Soon enough, the government cut back the university's funding, which cut the operating budget. Eventually the Faculty of Science was looking at a $10 million shortfall; the equivalent of an entire department's budget. So they cut back on student spaces to the old $X/student allocation. One would hope that the public would notice and speak up in response, asking their politicians to properly fund education.
elipsitz 4y ago
Correction— the author of the op-ed, Nicholas Weaver, is a former lecturer in the EECS department at UC Berkeley. And a personal insight, as a former uGSI (TA) in the department, the problem isn’t paying TAs enough. The pay is actually quite high for a student job (especially when you factor in the fact that in-state tuition is paid for). But the course budgets simply aren’t high enough to hire the sheer quantity of TAs that would be required to handle all of the students who want to take the classes. I was involved in hiring some semesters, and there were always more people we wanted to hire than the budget would allow. I believe the situation has only gotten worse since I left.
- lacker 4y ago
  That makes sense. So as a system we need to be spending more money on TAs, but not to raise their hourly pay, per se, mostly just to hire more TAs. You are also correct that the author is a former lecturer. Too bad it's too late for me to edit the comment.
anu7df 4y ago
Can I ask what it is that costs $350 per hour per student? There is one professor lecturing and a few TAs who work 20 hours a week at max. There are 60-100 students in all the major classes, 20-30 in more advanced ones. What exactly is the cost that leads to $350 per hour per student? Compute and infrastructure costs amortized over many students per year can't be it. Then what?
- fsckboy 4y ago
  maybe he meant "credit hours" which is a different thing, I think a 4 credit course means that classes meet 4 hrs a week, but the $350 is for the entire semester or the quarter.
- elipsitz 4y ago
  The largest classes (CS 61A and CS 61B) have roughly 1800 and 1600 students respectively during peak semesters. A 20 hour TA is paid ~$2250/mo for approximately 4.5 months per semester, plus ~$7000/semester in tuition remission (so ~$17k). $350 is the total cost for the whole semester per student. 17k/350 is about 50 students per TA, which sounds about right (and even that is a higher than ideal ratio). There are other costs too, but these are the some of the highest.
  - idontwantthis 4y ago
    Are the TAs grad students? I got $10/hour and nothing else as an undergrad TA.
    - elipsitz 4y ago
      Some are, almost all in the introductory classes (including me) and many in the upper division classes are undergrads. (u)GSIs at Berkeley are paid particularly well compared to other schools, I think in large part due to the TA union (UAW 2865).
      - idontwantthis 4y ago
        Man, my university cost twice as much too.

by lacker 4y ago

bhaney 4y ago

> I hope they simply start paying CS TAs better. Impossible. Students definitely don't pay more than $50 per credit hour in tuition, so there's nowhere for the university to get the additional funds from. Edit: This was sarcastic

learndeeply 4y ago
UC Berkeley has a $6 billion endowment. It's not impossible, but improbable.
apengwin 4y ago
the government and taxes presumably. I think higher education is a wonderful public investment with great returns.

TigeriusKirk 4y ago

There's a great deal of missing information in that accounting. With what they've provided, it's not clear that they need to pay TAs more.

forrestthewoods 4y ago

What a sad and embarrassing state of affairs. :( Tuition is $14,000 for in-state and and a laughable $44,000 for out-of-state. And they can’t find an extra $150 per student? Fire one worthless administrator and the $150 gap is completely covered. Voila!

aidenn0 4y ago
I'm sure the typical student takes 280 credits per year...

jxramos 4y ago

Aha, that makes more sense now. I was almost going to say is this really news? I thought the concept of an "impacted" major was a pretty old definition--it basically means there are more applicants than there are spaces. But this other bit of information about a growing slice of the student body pie electing for a hot and lucrative major.

murphyslab 4y ago

This reminds me of my alma mater. The provincial government previously had funded $X/student. Then they changed it to a fixed grant. Meanwhile, enrollment continued to expand; the institution saw the expansion as serving the public. Soon enough, the government cut back the university's funding, which cut the operating budget. Eventually the Faculty of Science was looking at a $10 million shortfall; the equivalent of an entire department's budget. So they cut back on student spaces to the old $X/student allocation. One would hope that the public would notice and speak up in response, asking their politicians to properly fund education.

elipsitz 4y ago

Correction— the author of the op-ed, Nicholas Weaver, is a former lecturer in the EECS department at UC Berkeley. And a personal insight, as a former uGSI (TA) in the department, the problem isn’t paying TAs enough. The pay is actually quite high for a student job (especially when you factor in the fact that in-state tuition is paid for). But the course budgets simply aren’t high enough to hire the sheer quantity of TAs that would be required to handle all of the students who want to take the classes. I was involved in hiring some semesters, and there were always more people we wanted to hire than the budget would allow. I believe the situation has only gotten worse since I left.

lacker 4y ago
That makes sense. So as a system we need to be spending more money on TAs, but not to raise their hourly pay, per se, mostly just to hire more TAs. You are also correct that the author is a former lecturer. Too bad it's too late for me to edit the comment.

anu7df 4y ago

Can I ask what it is that costs $350 per hour per student? There is one professor lecturing and a few TAs who work 20 hours a week at max. There are 60-100 students in all the major classes, 20-30 in more advanced ones. What exactly is the cost that leads to $350 per hour per student? Compute and infrastructure costs amortized over many students per year can't be it. Then what?

fsckboy 4y ago
maybe he meant "credit hours" which is a different thing, I think a 4 credit course means that classes meet 4 hrs a week, but the $350 is for the entire semester or the quarter.
elipsitz 4y ago
The largest classes (CS 61A and CS 61B) have roughly 1800 and 1600 students respectively during peak semesters. A 20 hour TA is paid ~$2250/mo for approximately 4.5 months per semester, plus ~$7000/semester in tuition remission (so ~$17k). $350 is the total cost for the whole semester per student. 17k/350 is about 50 students per TA, which sounds about right (and even that is a higher than ideal ratio). There are other costs too, but these are the some of the highest.
- idontwantthis 4y ago
  Are the TAs grad students? I got $10/hour and nothing else as an undergrad TA.
  - elipsitz 4y ago
    Some are, almost all in the introductory classes (including me) and many in the upper division classes are undergrads. (u)GSIs at Berkeley are paid particularly well compared to other schools, I think in large part due to the TA union (UAW 2865).
    - idontwantthis 4y ago
      Man, my university cost twice as much too.