Most students I know were TA for one or two semesters and RA for the remainder of their 6 years. As far as I can tell, they are all a financial gain, not drain, for the university. That will likely depend on the department though.
I don't know about Masters students.
If I said that the introduction of the automobile to common public use was similar to the introduction of domesticated animals for riding, because it opened up a larger/wider area that people could interact with... saying that a car has wheels but a horse doesn't wouldn't invalidate that comparison.
That would be interesting, because TAs do the grading. ;-)
"“The current child care subsidy will be enough to cover … less than 2 months of child care per year”"
TAs also grade quizzes, final exams, create questions for problems, etc... The professor often does very little work and leaves it to the TA, at least in my experience as a TA for physics courses. It's a lot more than just maintaining a lab.
Yes. From the article: "If the deal is approved by union members, graduate students would receive a minimum stipend of $34,000 by October 2024—a raise of $13,000 for some students". So as I said, professors are vastly more expensive.
> Also, wouldn’t that provide more actual jobs for PHd’s instead of competing for a scant number of jobs?
Yes. But it wouldn't do anything to save money on undergraduate education.
> Furthermore, I do not believe that the costs of undergraduate education are driven by professor salaries; I suspect there are other drivers like administrative overhead and overbuilt facilities.
Then what's the objection to higher stipends for PhD students?
Right, and this is why they are trying to underpay teaching staff.
There is no problem with “whiny” PhDs. The problem is with overpaid self-dealing administrators betraying the purpose of the institution.
It's a graduate student union. Both Masters and PhD students are in the same union.
> senior undergrads
1) They're not qualified.
2) Why would they even want to? It's time consuming and low paying. In fact, it would be even lower paying without a union, so senior undergrads would need to form one. Also keep in mind that PhD students are generally intending to go into teaching in the future, whereas undergrads generally aren't.
If they don't work for the university, these union negotiations don't affect them.
That is exactly what the union is negotiating.
Interesting concept. Paying students to attend. I survived on this support in ancient times as somebody has to handle all those pre med/vet/dental students. But it was lean and I still can’t enjoy Mac and cheese. It certainly wasn’t a job or career.
Edit: reply again to deeper in the thread: we used the early students for things like 1-2 year lab as they were way better at lab than the students. Nobody handled a recitation unless they were 3rd year or more, had neutral+ evaluations and their boss lacked RA funding. Those with funded profs didn’t waste time ta’ing as they did work and wrote paper drafts. Those with new or unfunded profs did the ta gig and they also did full time work and writing drafts. 10+ extra hours a week ta.
The general public thinks first and foremost about education, but for lots of academics, teaching is a necessary evil and research is where the prestige (and money) is.
Adjuncts are more expensive than PhD students. That's not going to help at all with undergraduate costs.
> or senior u-grad students to be the necessary ta’s. It’s not like a 1st or 2nd year PhD student is particularly good or interested in ta’ing - they might be taking courses and are certainly fulfilling program entry requirements.
If 1st or 2nd year PhD students are not particularly good, then wouldn't senior undergraduate students be even worse? Anyway, in my experience 1st or 2nd year PhD students didn't usually TA. It was the longer tenured students who were the TAs.
Research is also incredibly important, especially at state schools, so that undergraduate students have more opportunity to participate in and learn from active research.
In my experience having worked at both prestigious private and low ranking state schools, state school doing research are much more willing to have undergrads involved in research. I've seen plenty of young students coming from low income, rural homes go on to become more successful than they ever imagined because they had access to research facilities and teams.
edit: it's worth noting as another commenter has that most of the teaching in universities is done by highly underpaid grad students.