Indiana University Forced to Cut Doctoral Admissions to Pay for Sizable Grad Student Raise
“Still, the union continues to demand raises.”
How much longer can this go on? It doesn’t look like a sustainable model.
The College Fix reports:
Indiana University cuts doctoral admissions to pay for 46% grad student raise
There will be fewer doctorate candidates admitted to Indiana University to help offset the cost of raises won by the graduate students union.
The changes come as a result of a 46 percent raise given to graduate students as a result of a four-week strike last year by the Indiana Graduate Workers Coalition United Electrical Workers, according to the student newspaper.
Indiana Daily Student reported:
According to Rob Potter, director of graduate studies in The Media School, there will also be fewer doctoral student admissions in the future to account for the 46% raise graduate students received last year after going on a four-week strike.
Potter said the university is decreasing doctoral student admission because the available budget for graduate students has not increased to account for last year’s promised raise.
“So essentially their compensation went up, but the general pool of money devoted to funding graduate student compensation remained the same,” Potter said. “The pie didn’t get bigger, but the slices did, and that means we can admit fewer doctoral students than we have in the past.”Moving forward, graduate students admitted into Ph.D. programs at IU will receive four years of funding for their studies, Potter said. Graduate students currently enrolled in these programs will receive the promised funding necessary to complete their dissertations.
Still, the union continues to demand raises. “The Indiana Graduate Workers Coalition United Electrical Workers submitted a petition for an 8% salary increase to IU administration March 31,” the student newspaper reported.
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Comments
Is this supposed to be a bad thing?
Economics is the science of managing scarcity. Good lesson, this.
They’re pulling the ladder up after them, innit?
If they keep up their demands for raises, then pretty soon the programs will have a few candidates each, and then we’ll start to see downsizing of professors–which isn’t a bad thing
I wonder if the two representative from the econ department pointed this out and then were summarily shouted down.
FWIW, I went to one of these meetings in the mid-80’s as one of the med-school reps, and as we learned more I looked over to the other guy and said, “if you don’t tell them how much I make, I won’t tell them how much you make.” Those of us on NIH predoctoral stipends a) didn’t have to teach and b) pulled in about 60% more. We weren’t happy, but we were clearly happier.