According to an email statement to The Daily Tar Heel from the Duke Graduate Students Union’s leadership, union-led efforts over the past decade have resulted in stipend increases for their graduate workers, including a recent increase to a $40,000 minimum for the 2024-25 academic year.
University perspective
Beth Mayer-Davis, dean of the Graduate School, said that the University does not automatically receive additional funding from the state for the purpose of stipend increases.
“Some of the stipend dollars do come from the state, some of the stipend dollars come from grant support or fellowships that students receive from any number of sources,” she said. “And so the question becomes, given that stipends are paid from various sources for different students, how do we make sure that an increase can be afforded, can be budgeted to meet that need.”
The University's operating budget, approved by the Board of Trustees last May, for the 2024-25 fiscal year is $4.2 billion. The budget development process involved over 30 meetings between campus units, the provost and the Finance and Budget leadership team to address fiscal challenges and opportunities.
Budget priorities include the School of Civic Life and Leadership, investment in AI, cybersecurity and "graduate student support." The Graduate School’s funding falls under the Academic Affairs department.
The University has allocated $77,786,000 toward salaries, wages, scholarships and fellowships for the entire Academic Affairs department. This funding is sourced from a combination of general funds, which include state appropriations and tuition revenue, as well as auxiliary and other trust funds generated by University services. Additional contributions come from restricted trust funds.
On Jan. 1, 2023, the minimum stipend amount increased to $16,000 for master’s students and $20,000 for doctoral candidates for a nine-month service period. For the 2024-25 academic year, master’s students and doctoral candidates will receive $16,500 and $20,600, respectively.
Mayer-Davis said that the University currently can’t afford the jump to the $40,000 minimum stipend proposed by the Workers Union at UNC, which is part of UE Local 150.
She also clarified that the Nov. 7 Board of Trustees’ comments regarding the Graduate and Professional Student Government’s no-confidence resolutions are “completely unrelated” to current funding discussions.
“I know personally how tremendous our students are and how much they contribute to our intellectual environment, really to the culture, the heart and soul of our University,” she said. “So that's why I'm so strongly in support of increasing the stipends, as are our other administrators. Again, we need to figure out the budget to be able to do that.”
Graduate workers’ perspective
To get the day's news and headlines in your inbox each morning, sign up for our email newsletters.
Jorge Mancilla, member of the Executive Board of the Workers Union at UNC's graduate chapter, said the organization plans to deliver its petition to administration this semester.
Mancilla said faculty members have expressed in conversations that they’re having a difficult time recruiting their desired graduate candidates due to more money being offered at other universities.
He also spoke about his personal experience when he received competing offers between the University of Texas at Austin and UNC. Mancilla said that in 2021, Austin’s cost of living was higher, but its stipends were lower. However, by the following year, UT-Austin had increased their stipends. Meanwhile, Orange County’s monthly wage to cover the cost of living ranked second highest out of 20 counties in North Carolina, according to the self-sufficiency standard created by the University of Washington Center for Women's Welfare.
“If I had applied a year later, I might have gone to the University of Texas [at Austin], even though I think UNC is a better fit for me, and this is becoming more and more common as the cost of living keeps going up in Chapel Hill and the stipends remain roughly the same,” he said.
Mancilla added that the lack of a living wage for graduate workers is “a problem of undervaluing research and education.”
A graduate worker and second-year doctoral student, who has to rely heavily on inherited wealth from their deceased mother’s estate, requested to remain anonymous because the funds are taxed as income which could be seen as a second off-campus job. Some graduate students said that having a second job is discouraged.
“If I didn’t have that, I definitely could not afford to be here, especially living in a single-income household and also having a chronic illness, which is very expensive,” they said.
They said that graduate school is becoming more of a financial challenge than an intellectual one.
“It’s increasingly becoming not like ‘are you smart enough’ or ‘capable enough’ or ‘intellectually creative enough’ to get a PhD, but can you afford to get a PhD even when it’s fully funded,” the student said.
A second graduate worker, who requested to remain anonymous because of concerns that speaking openly might lead to the University pressuring them or their department, shared similar struggles.
They said that they’ve had to rely on additional University jobs, which require approval from their department.
“It’s the sort of trade off of like, I am working the extra job, or jobs, depending on the semester which means that I'm able to make my rent, pay for utilities and groceries and have a little bit left over each month, but I wouldn’t have otherwise made all the payments that I need to,” they said.
The student said that working multiple jobs requires late nights and early mornings to meet both academic and financial obligations.
“There's a number of compounding effects of the stipend being too low that affect both us, as graduate professional students in our own right, working on research, etc. but that they also have kind of further knock on effects for the continued functioning of the University as a public institution," they said.
In a statement to The DTH, Provost Chris Clemens said that increasing graduate school stipends remains a priority for University administration.
“Over the last few months, we’ve been working closely with GPSG President Katie Heath, Graduate School Dean Beth Mayer-Davis and all the other deans to gather feedback and determine funding,” Clemens said. “We hope to announce an increase in the minimum stipends for PhD and master's students sometime this semester.”
@calebherrera_
@dailytarheel | university@dailytarheel.com
