'We want to be paid a living wage': Graduate student workers at UIC go on strike

[Omaha Steve]

Source: Chicago Tribune Yahoo

Kate Armanini, Chicago Tribune
Thu, April 30, 2026 at 5:00 AM CDT

Isobel Araujo, a second-year Ph.D. student, earns $24,000 a year as a teaching and resident assistant at the University of Illinois Chicago. Between classes, coursework and dorm duties, she babysits to make ends meet. She’s now searching for new housing on a tight budget.

“It’s really depressing. There’s not a single apartment that we’ve been able to find that you can afford with a wage like that,” Araujo said.

Araujo is one of roughly 2,290 student workers, represented by the UIC Graduate Employees Organization, who went on strike Monday after months of stalled contract talks. The union’s three-year contract expired last August.

The key sticking point in bargaining is wages, members say. Graduate workers fill a wide range of roles at the university, including teaching classes and conducting research.



Read more: https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/want-paid-living-wage-graduate-100000510.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93aXJlcG9pbnRzLm9yZy8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAANZ8tSouPmOHWGtCKS7grYy7iUPxK96XVOOEgtdn3r459QSgpxrnCq55-lG-RyqLib8TT2l_mIonX0eCzdE4IYjKh29jXxmm3bd2_xIqr17NHV2mvDC2wAzNlWqIyaDcPe4pw6P-nSZDh4q5fHUsIsw82165E3qelNNPIw_ODLiO

[JT45242]

1. They could take out student loans like I did as a school teacher for grad school

They are expected to work about 20 hours per week during the school year. That amounts to about $33 per hour on a PART TIME JOB (those hours are supposed to include planning and grading). FYI $33/hour is a living wage if you work full time.

When I attended graduate school, I was a FULL TIME high school teacher and took out student loans. It was worth in the long run as I got a raise for my masters degree and another raise when I hit master's Plus 15/30/45 hours.

They are getting paid far more per hour than full time starting school teachers who must actually have teaching credentials in pedagogy, instruction, and the content area that they are teaching and are in front of a class of students for more hours per week (approx 40) and must grade, prepare, communicate with parents, complete mandatory PD, etc. on their own time.

I have seen far too many students GPA and self esteem ruined by graduate assistants masquerading as teachers in front of megaclasses of hundreds of first year students.

If they want better, get better qualifications for the job that you are theoretically hired to do. Far too many graduate students think that they are getting paid to work on their thesis or dissertation and not actually teach the undergraduate students thrust in front of them.

I am pro union (was union rep for my school district for years) -- but when it comes to being paid to teach, you better actually put student learning first and be qualified to do the job.

I couldn't hire the people hired as teaching assistants in colleges to a long term sub job -- because they aren't qualified for a TEACHING job. If you want to pay them to be a lab assistant, then give them that title an pay them entry level wages for QA technicians.

[Omaha Steve]

2. A well thought out reply

Thanks!

[ck4829]

3. Unfortunately, these loans do have to be paid back

And unlike businessmen getting their PPP loans forgiven, the government expects students to pay back their loans with interest.

[RedArkGuy]

6. Pro union but not in this case, right?

Every teaching assistant I've ever met or seen worked many more than 20 hours a week to teach their six hours a week. Many must grade the papers and the everyday classwork of over a hundred students and with the deterioration of literacy there is more and more to mark and provide feedback on.

You got yours. You disdain the work of student teachers you probably never actually see doing their jobs. And now you're betraying them.

[JT45242]

8. The university system needs overhauled

They are not qualified to teach (nor are most professors) ...knowledge does not equal pedagogical content knowledge (training in how to teach content knowledge).

The university system charges huge sums of money to students the first two years and puts students in huge lecture halls to be talked at (not really taught). This system leads to either lowered expectations, students (customers of the system) teaching themselves , or students doing poorly and pushed out of the system with debt but no degree to offset the cost.

They should be trained as teachers not researchers if you are going to give them that title and responsibility to teach paying customers. Because they could not be hired to teach those college freshmen if they were seated in a high school class. They could not even be hired to teach a dual enrollment course with credit in both HS and college transcripts because they do not have a teaching credential.

All for unions. But as a 20 year teacher and now an educational researcher, I would put the students first in terms of qualifications on those teaching assistants. Electrician unions don't pay apprentices more than fully qualified electricians. College TA should not be paid more than fully qualified k-12 teachers.

[twodogsbarking]

4. and this

In November 2025, Penn State graduate assistants voted overwhelmingly (about 90%) to form a union with the Coalition of Graduate Employees–UAW (CGE-UAW). While representing teaching and research assistants for better compensation and protections, the union currently faces challenges, as Penn State has appealed to exclude research assistants, claiming they are students rather than employees

[ananda]

5. When I was in school, grad students would often grade papers.

One of the girls I knew paid me to type an English paper for her.

It was a direct copy of a paper a guy wrote for the same professor
a year or two before.

She got an A on it.

[RedArkGuy]

7. Maybe in undergrad school you could have learned . . .

. . . the concept of anecdotal evidence.

[NNadir]

9. My son declined both MIT and Berkeley when he considered...

...the cost of living and the size of the stipend.

He instead chose a school with a livable stipend in the area, no TA requirements, and an advisor he admired from afar.

None other than Freeman Dyson declined to get a Ph.D on the grounds that he considered graduate school a form of slavery, although he did do research with Hans Bethe.

Graduate students, who work their asses off, are our future. We should honor them and support them.