GEO trying to protect what we already have

The GEO’s proposal to protect tuition waivers in our contract seems to be particularly galling to the uninformed. Tuition waivers are a standard feature of graduate education throughout this University and around the country. All but the choosiest graduate departments offer their students tuition waivers—essentially full scholarships. Very few graduate students anywhere (with the exception of business and medical students) pay tuition.

Graduate students on fellowship receive tuition waivers. Research assistants either receive tuition waivers from their departments or their grants pay their tuition (plus 58% overhead—money that the students never see that goes straight to the university on top of their tuition). Teaching and graduate assistants’ tuition waivers are typically tied to working a certain number of hours per week that varies according to their department.

We are not asking for a new kind of compensation; we are trying to protect what we already have. In the University of Illinois system, the Board of Trustees’ General Rules waive in-state tuition for “graduate assistants.” The rules were written before the GEO was formed, so we are negotiating over what “graduate assistants” means, because the University divided GAs and TAs from RAs when the GEO formed. This spring the administration proposed canceling tuition waivers for appointments less than 50% (20 hours per week). Hundreds of graduate students (TAs, GAs, RAs) in programs such as the fine arts or dual-degree track (MD/PhD) rely on 25% and 33% appointments and the concomitant tuition waiver, because we cannot work more than 10 or 13 hours per week and still make progress toward our degrees. Moreover, sometimes we have to cobble together appointments to reach 50%, so students who are working half-time on multiple appointments might potentially have lost their waivers, despite having come here with the expectation of that financial support.

Kristen Ehrenberger,

graduate student