UC scrambling to afford big wage gains for academic workers: Grad student cuts loom
Just weeks after the University of California and academic workers heralded historic wage gains in new labor contracts, the question of how to pay for them is roiling campuses as they scramble to identify money, consider cutbacks in graduate student admissions and fear deficits.
The full financial costs of the labor settlements between UC and 48,000 academic workers who help power the system's vaunted teaching and research engine are still being tallied. But preliminary estimates have dealt a "financial shock to the system," said Rosemarie Rae, UC Berkeley chief financial officer.
The UC Office of the President estimates the increased costs for salary, benefits and tuition systemwide will be between $500 million and $570 million over the life of the contracts. Campuses have come up with their own calculations: At UC Santa Barbara, for instance, the Academic Senate chair estimated that the cost of pay hikes alone could spiral to more than $53 million over three years at her campus, one of 10 systemwide.
Overall, the costs take in pay increases of 20% to 80% depending on the workers — teaching assistants, tutors, researchers and postdoctoral scholars — and are among the highest ever granted to such university employees in the nation.
"It's a huge number," UC Board of Regents Chair Rich Leib said of the costs. "I think it was a good agreement and I'm happy with that. But there are ramifications. It's not like the money's coming from the sky. We're trying to figure it out, but it's going to require changes."
Options are limited, with no new state influx of money in the coming academic year dedicated to covering the raises when they kick in — and the state is facing a projected $22.5-billion budget deficit. Fixed federal contracts that pay for 60% of the academic workers can't be abruptly renegotiated. Many campuses have raised pointed questions as to why UC negotiated the contracts without identifying a clear funding source.
"We were in a difficult situation," Leib said. "You have graduate students who were really hurting in the face of housing costs. It's not really feasible to say, 'As soon as we get the money, we'll let you know.' It's one pressure after another."
Funding the raises could touch off far-reaching changes to UC's traditional model of graduate student education, including potential reductions in teaching assistants and researchers. Decreasing their numbers could have a cascading effect by narrowing the pipeline for future faculty and industry innovators, affecting UC research output and diluting the learning experience of undergraduates with potentially larger class sizes and less personalized instruction.
"The state of California needs more highly trained people and we're going in the opposite direction," said Susannah Scott, a UC Santa Barbara chemical engineering professor and chair of her campus Academic Senate. "People are very worried."
Leib and other UC leaders, administrators and faculty emphasize they support the wage and benefit gains to help academic workers live in the pricey neighborhoods where campuses are located.
For academic student employees, the new contract will raise minimum pay from about $23,250 to about $34,000 for nine months of part-time work by Oct. 1, 2024 with rates topping $36,000 at UC Berkeley, UC San Francisco and UCLA. Graduate student researchers will make a minimum of $34,564 for nine months of part-time work by Oct. 1, 2024.
Postdoctoral scholars will receive an increase in minimum annual pay for their full-time positions from about $55,000 to $70,000 or higher with various adjustments by the end of the five-year contract. Contracts for graduate student workers run through May 2025 and extend two years longer for the others.
So far, UC has not sent campuses any systemwide game plan to handle the raises — fueling frustration among many faculty that they'll be left to figure out solutions using their own funds to pay for labor negotiations they say they had little if any opportunity to help shape.
UC spokesman Jorge Silva said that UC President Michael V. Drake's office collaborated with several key campus and faculty representatives throughout the bargaining process, including the Academic Senate. "The Office of the President will continue to work with our campuses to implement these generous contracts...and be responsive to their unique structures and needs," he said in an email.
UC Chief Financial Officer Nathan Brostrom said some funding is available for researchers and postdoctoral scholars, whose jobs are generally supported by federal grants obtained by faculty. But faculty will need to incorporate the larger price tags in their contract renewals, he said.
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