The realities of a graduate student assistantship
I've been getting emails from friends about problems with their appointments. I suspect a lot of this is more problematic than usual because of the reality of our current economy. More people who are unemployed or fear the pink slip are returning to graduate school. At the same time, many universities are feeling a budget crunch, which they pass on to individual departments, and the departments then try to find ways to make ends meet, often looking at their graduate student population.
Graduate school works in odd ways. One is that you're given an assistantship (or appointment) instead of a job. The assistantship is usually based on the assumption of a 40 hour work week. That is, if you have a 50% appointment, you are supposed to be working 20 hours a week on either teaching or research (the research may or may not be of your own choosing, depending on the preferences of your advisor). At most places, a 50% appointment is usually the largest, because it assumes you'll be spending the other 20 hours of your work week taking classes or working on your own research, depending on your status in the program. This is what is usually required for full-coverage of tuition, pay, and benefits.
I'm not sure where the convention came from, but it is rather absurd.
The reason it is absurd is because it is based on a 40 hour work week. I can pretty much guarantee that no place will be happy with you if you work only 40 hours per week as a grad student. I would say the norm is probably 60-80, or even more, depending on your university or department or advisor. If you are taking classes and teaching, most places may still expect that you do research on top of the teaching or research that is part of your assistantship. This sort of expectation may be in line if one is under salary, but as far as I know, most of these agreements are made with the idea of an hourly wage as the basis for pay.
Of course, some places pay based on a set rate per lab or course. Your choice in this case is often to teach an insane number of labs or courses simply to have enough money to make ends meet.
Second, if your appointment does require more time than the 20 hours per week, that is immaterial. In fact, I would be wary if someone tells you that a half-time appointment takes less time than the 20 hours (a common statement come recruitment time). The problem is not so much the reality of how much time your appointment may require, but that this statement often reflects a belief or perception among the faculty that your appointment requires less time that it really does. It is when this occurs that you have a problem: not only is your effort for your appointment time unrecognized as a conflict to your other efforts to graduate, but the faculty (particularly your advisor) may have this belief that you are not spending enough time on your research, ever.
Third, there is the problem that you really cannot complain about how much time you spend on an assistantship. If you do request less work (whether or not it is because you are working more than 20 hours per week), then you can often expect your assistantship percentage will be scaled back. That is, if you say you can't handle a 50% appointment, they may move you back to a 25% or 37.5% appointment, resulting not only in a reduction of work hours but also in reduction of tuition covered and pay received. If you do have benefits, those would potentially go away as well.
Finally, one of the budget-reduction methods is to cut graduate student pay. There is a good chance that a graduate student starting school now is probably not making as much as a student who started 2-5 years ago if they are enrolling in a university that is suffering from budget setbacks. If a program has a standard rate that they pay for graduate students, they may reduce that for incoming students. Some graduate students may enroll in a program without receiving an award letter or receiving one that doesn't specify pay rates. This means their pay can be cut at any time despite the fact they may be doing the same amount of work. (A few years ago, several of my friends, both grads and undergrads, worked for a department that made such a cut. In this case, they dropped their per class pay by 20% for graduate students and 25% for undergrads. When the students complained, the faculty member in charge of facilitating TAs had the audacity to claim that all of them were in error and that they were receiving the same rate of pay that had been in place for the last several years because he feared the new students discovering the truth. This was, BTW, not during a period of economic downturn.) A department can also mandate that the students take a lower appointment (such at 25%), whether or not that is financially feasible for the student.
Not that I don't understand the problem of how to deal with budget shortfalls, but I have to admit that it bothers me so many grad students have to take it in the shorts when these things happen. Graduate students (especially outside of science and engineering) are often at or below the poverty level already. Most places don't have a union to protect students from such practices, and historically, the NLRB has not been very open to the idea of graduate student unions. I guess the moral of the story is that you should get everything in writing because there is a non-trivial possibility that you can be financially screwed at some point during your graduate student career. Of course, that does you no good if the school gives you a letter stating that there are ample reasons to exempt them from adhering to the contract.
Graduate school works in odd ways. One is that you're given an assistantship (or appointment) instead of a job. The assistantship is usually based on the assumption of a 40 hour work week. That is, if you have a 50% appointment, you are supposed to be working 20 hours a week on either teaching or research (the research may or may not be of your own choosing, depending on the preferences of your advisor). At most places, a 50% appointment is usually the largest, because it assumes you'll be spending the other 20 hours of your work week taking classes or working on your own research, depending on your status in the program. This is what is usually required for full-coverage of tuition, pay, and benefits.
I'm not sure where the convention came from, but it is rather absurd.
The reason it is absurd is because it is based on a 40 hour work week. I can pretty much guarantee that no place will be happy with you if you work only 40 hours per week as a grad student. I would say the norm is probably 60-80, or even more, depending on your university or department or advisor. If you are taking classes and teaching, most places may still expect that you do research on top of the teaching or research that is part of your assistantship. This sort of expectation may be in line if one is under salary, but as far as I know, most of these agreements are made with the idea of an hourly wage as the basis for pay.
Of course, some places pay based on a set rate per lab or course. Your choice in this case is often to teach an insane number of labs or courses simply to have enough money to make ends meet.
Second, if your appointment does require more time than the 20 hours per week, that is immaterial. In fact, I would be wary if someone tells you that a half-time appointment takes less time than the 20 hours (a common statement come recruitment time). The problem is not so much the reality of how much time your appointment may require, but that this statement often reflects a belief or perception among the faculty that your appointment requires less time that it really does. It is when this occurs that you have a problem: not only is your effort for your appointment time unrecognized as a conflict to your other efforts to graduate, but the faculty (particularly your advisor) may have this belief that you are not spending enough time on your research, ever.
Third, there is the problem that you really cannot complain about how much time you spend on an assistantship. If you do request less work (whether or not it is because you are working more than 20 hours per week), then you can often expect your assistantship percentage will be scaled back. That is, if you say you can't handle a 50% appointment, they may move you back to a 25% or 37.5% appointment, resulting not only in a reduction of work hours but also in reduction of tuition covered and pay received. If you do have benefits, those would potentially go away as well.
Finally, one of the budget-reduction methods is to cut graduate student pay. There is a good chance that a graduate student starting school now is probably not making as much as a student who started 2-5 years ago if they are enrolling in a university that is suffering from budget setbacks. If a program has a standard rate that they pay for graduate students, they may reduce that for incoming students. Some graduate students may enroll in a program without receiving an award letter or receiving one that doesn't specify pay rates. This means their pay can be cut at any time despite the fact they may be doing the same amount of work. (A few years ago, several of my friends, both grads and undergrads, worked for a department that made such a cut. In this case, they dropped their per class pay by 20% for graduate students and 25% for undergrads. When the students complained, the faculty member in charge of facilitating TAs had the audacity to claim that all of them were in error and that they were receiving the same rate of pay that had been in place for the last several years because he feared the new students discovering the truth. This was, BTW, not during a period of economic downturn.) A department can also mandate that the students take a lower appointment (such at 25%), whether or not that is financially feasible for the student.
Not that I don't understand the problem of how to deal with budget shortfalls, but I have to admit that it bothers me so many grad students have to take it in the shorts when these things happen. Graduate students (especially outside of science and engineering) are often at or below the poverty level already. Most places don't have a union to protect students from such practices, and historically, the NLRB has not been very open to the idea of graduate student unions. I guess the moral of the story is that you should get everything in writing because there is a non-trivial possibility that you can be financially screwed at some point during your graduate student career. Of course, that does you no good if the school gives you a letter stating that there are ample reasons to exempt them from adhering to the contract.