News

 UT’s $19,750 Stipend Falls Short of Austin’s High Cost of Living

Graduate students at UT Austin have long faced inadequate compensation, and the time for change is now. As thousands of new graduate students arrive in Austin this week, they’re met with an exciting opportunity, but also a harsh reality: UT’s minimum stipend of $19,750 barely covers 40% of Austin’s $49,878.40 living wage.* 

Some faculty and administrators may dismiss these financial struggles as mere learning experiences or as a temporary phase before we secure better salaries as future faculty. But we’re not fooled. The disparity between our stipend and the true cost of living is a serious issue that demands immediate attention.

In comparison to other similar universities, UT Austin’s $19,750 stipend is significantly lower-- highlighting the inadequacy of our current compensation. These statistics highlight how absurd it is that UT claims to be a competitive option for prospective graduate students.

Despite our efforts to address these concerns—compiling data on financial stressors, arguing for fair health insurance options, and requesting more graduate student housing—we’ve been met with indifference from the administration. It’s clear that our voices have not been heard, and it’s time to demand a change.

It’s time for UT Austin’s graduate students to unite and hold administration accountable. Our hard work is essential to the university’s operations, and we deserve fair compensation for our contributions. Recent successes by graduate students at other universities show that change is possible:

• The Duke Graduate Student Union is currently in negotiations with university administration, setting a powerful example for other Southern and “right-to-work” states.**

• Boston University Graduate Workers Union is also currently in negotiations with university administration.***

• The Graduate Employees’ Organization (GEO) at the University of Michigan successfully negotiated a new contract for the ‘23-’24 academic year after a nearly five-month strike.****

We must seize this moment to organize and demand the compensation we deserve. Join us in the fight for fair wages and better conditions because when we organize, we win. As Black Panther Fred Hampton wisely said, “If you dare to struggle, then you dare to win. If you dare not to struggle, you don’t deserve to win.”

Sources:

* Calculated with MIT’s cost of living calculator: https://livingwage.mit.edu/

** Read more here: https://www.dukegradunion.org/bargaining

*** Read more here: https://bugwu.org/about-us/bugwu-in-the-news/

**** Read more here: https://www.geo3550.org/about/history/

Building a Case: School of Architecture, Financial Pressure, and Why we Organize

The average School of Architecture (SOA) graduate student is running a monthly budget deficit of $500, according to a recent Cost of Living and Compensation (COLS) survey taken by nearly 100 of our SOA peers. That same survey showed that 92% of students felt financial distress during their studies, and up to 54% have seriously weighed leaving their program altogether because of their inadequate funding. This COLS survey quantified what many of us already know about working at the University of Texas at Austin, regardless of school or department: we are underpaid.

A SOA graduate student can expect to earn barely $2,000 per month in stipend—and considering that the vast majority of graduate students are financially left out in the cold (ironically) during the summer, thus losing out on three months of income, that average stipend comes out to a whopping $18,000 per year. That is roughly equal to a $8.65 hourly wage, far less than the $18.15/hr. that is considered a living wage in the Austin area (according to the MIT Living Wage Calculator).

And all of the above is for those who are employed by the University; for those denied funding for their scholarly and professional contributions to UT Austin, they are often forced to seek outside employment, which pays 25% less (roughly $1300/mn.). Consider that the average monthly rent that an SOA pays in deliriously-expensive Austin is north of $1100: students are paying over half their income on just having a place to live, let alone the expenses of groceries, utilities, medical care, transportation, and other essential, non-negotiable needs. Over 30% of all UT students (graduate and undergraduate) are food insecure, not a single SOA student in the survey admitted to being financially at peace, and students are going into deep debt every month just to survive.

This is unacceptable, and it is on Maria Juenger's hands. It is on Jay Hartzell’s hands. And it is on the hands of every other member of administration that knows that the graduate students they employ are suffering  with poverty wages and do nothing of note to rectify the situation. Last year, in response to petitioning and demonstrations by Underpaid, administration claimed with a straight face (and in sterile 12pt. font) that graduate students are actually paid well, and that efforts are well underway to increasing our stipends—a little bit at a time.

Lies at worst, too little too late at best.

They are lies when held up to the testimony of one SOA student that said their subpar wages “has had a tremendous distressing effect on my enthusiasm and confidence to study and research.” It’s too little too late when held up to the testimony of another SOA student who says that their poverty stipend cannot feed their family and that they are forced to work more than 40 hours a week for no additional pay under a demanding and uncaring program director.

“I lost a lot of faith in the UTSOA this semester” succinctly summarizes the complete suppression of morale within the School of Architecture and at UT Austin among graduate students: forced to toil for bad wages, in bad working environments, under a bad administration that is sitting on millions—billions of dollars while we go hungry and our wallets lay empty.

Enough penny-pinching trying to make ends meet. No more sucking it up in hopes that things will get better if we just wait for the administration to get with the program. Enough is enough.

We invite all the workers who keep UT afloat to join our cause for better wages and better livelihoods. We are at our best when we stand united and collectively demand what we deserve. Many SOA graduate students have already joined us—will you?

Social Work Students FED UP about Unpaid Internships

FED UP, which stands for Field Education and Development: Undergraduate/graduate Placements, was born in the early spring of 2022 when a group of Steve Hicks School of Social Work (SHSSW) students decided to challenge the status quo and speak out against the practice of unpaid internships. These students sought to build on the groundwork prior SHSSW students had laid in resisting unjust policies and practices perpetuated by the SHSSW administration. FED UP would soon become the fourth chapter of the national Payment for Placements (P4P) movement, a coalition of students at Schools of Social Work across the country dedicated to advocating for payment for Social Work students completing their required practicum internships. At the SHSSW, MSSW students are required to complete nearly 1,000 practicum hours and BSW students must complete well over 400 hours throughout their program. While strides have been made to ameliorate the lack of compensation for students in practicum, the issue of unpaid or underpaid internships remain widespread and pervasive. Further, students have organized in response to the recognition that unpaid/underpaid labor is harmful not only to individual students, but also to the profession as a whole. While the National Association of Social Workers’ Code of Ethics clearly states that “professional self-care is paramount for competent and ethical social work practice,” balancing time-intensive internships, a full course load, and oftentimes employment to support oneself financially leaves students overworked and burnt out. 

According to FED UP’s 2022 survey of 120 SHSSW students, 91% of students agreed with the statement, “My ability to care for myself (mind, body, and spirit) is impaired by the need to work outside of Field [internships].” 83% of respondents reported that they regularly experience stress over paying for their monthly expenses, and only 7% felt that this current model of education was sustainable. The requirement to complete hundreds of unpaid/underpaid practicum hours, which is the standard at Social Work programs across the country, exacerbates both the financial and personal challenges already associated with graduate school, with the burden disproportionately falling on marginalized students. This included first-generation students, students of color, low-income students, and undocumented students, among others. In addition, not paying students for their work both contributes to provider burnout, which disadvantages clients, and limits the socioeconomic and racial/cultural diversity of the profession. As a result, this practice reinforces socioeconomic, racial, and other inequities within our school and the field at large. 

Ultimately, FED UP seeks to end the unjust pay-to-work-for-free practice at the SHSSW by advocating for a living wage stipend for all students in practicum. We are guided by collaboratively chosen principles of collective action, sustainability, consensus decision-making, and strategic flexibility. Composed of both Bachelor’s and Master’s students, we function in a non-hierarchical structure with a “flow-in, flow-out” policy. This policy takes into account the limited capacity of students to organize and honors any and all contributions to the movement as worthwhile and important. Our strategy is multi-tiered; we target our efforts at the faculty and staff of SHSSW, UT Austin, practicum sites, as well as the state legislature in seeking sustainable funding streams to support student interns. FED UP’s work has shifted and grown over time. We have developed allies among the student body, student organizations, faculty, staff, practicum sites, elected officials, and other stakeholders that support FED UP’s mission. 

Within the SHSSW, FED UP has pursued collaboration with our administration to both increase funding for student interns and alleviate the burden of completing a high number of unpaid/underpaid internship hours on students. After persistent efforts to establish a joint task force with the SHSSW administration, the administration finally agreed to meet with FED UP representatives regularly beginning in the fall of 2022. We enjoyed a productive semester of work that resulted in a variety of wins, including a partial hours reduction for internships to closer to the minimum required by the Council on Social Work Education, extending the timeline in the spring semester to complete practicum hours, and the establishment of an application-based Student Support Fund. Unfortunately, after one semester, SHSSW administrators walked away from this collaboration and disbanded the FED UP-SHSSW working group. Following this disheartening display of our administration’s lack of commitment to partnering with students in the effort to end unpaid internships, FED UP organized a walk-out and rally protesting unpaid/underpaid internships in conjunction with P4P’s National Week of Action in April 2023. Over 100 SHSSW students, supporters, and community members attended the rally, which featured a packed speaker lineup including student testimony, a statement of support from a faculty member, and a speech by an Underpaid@UT and Texas State Employees Union representative. The event culminated by marching into the SHSSW and stating FED UP’s demands before our dean and administration.   

At the state level, FED UP has been actively involved in collaborating with others to develop upstream policy solutions to this crisis. Our initial advocacy efforts were recognized by the Executive Director of NASW-Texas, Will Francis, who issued a statement of support endorsing FED UP in summer 2022. Four FED UP members presented at the NASW-Texas conference in Galveston in October 2022 and discussed the material, physiological, psychosocial, and professional consequences of unpaid internships, described how unpaid internships go against social work values and ethics, and facilitated conversations with participants about developing creative solutions to the problem. Given our emphatic advocacy efforts, NASW-Texas realized the severity of this issue and decided to work with State Representatives to file SB 1796 (Menéndez) / HB 4678 (Bryant), known as the Social Work Intern Practicum Stipend (SWIPS) Program. If passed, SWIPS would have allocated funding from the state budget to go towards stipends for both undergraduate and graduate Social Work students at accredited Schools of Social Work across the state of Texas, creating a pipeline for more social work professionals. In March 2023, FED UP was invited to co-present a workshop at NASW-TX’s Social Work Advocacy Day (SWAD) for students, staff and faculty to learn more about how to advocate for SWIPS and other bills at the Capitol during the legislative session. While this Bill ultimately died in committee, it paved the way for future legislative opportunities to fund Social Work students for their practicum work at the state level.

This year, FED UP continues to pursue a collaborative relationship with the SHSSW administration. Our recent advocacy with the SHSSW administration has yielded a few exciting wins, including the establishment of a Federal Work Study option for qualifying students in practicum, an invitation by the new Assistant Dean for Practicum Education for FED UP to present on our work and the need for stipends at the Practicum Instructor Development Institute early next year, and a commitment from the SHSSW to produce a video for FED UP promoting the need for funding for students in practicum. While we celebrate the wins along the way, our work will continue until all Social Work students completing their practicum requirement are appropriately compensated via a living wage stipend. Looking ahead, FED UP plans to conduct another survey evaluating more deeply the hardship students experience due to unpaid/underpaid practicum work. We are also interested in working with our administration to collaboratively address discrepancies in “pay-to-work” tuition for internship credits and to develop an MSSW internship position within our Office of Practicum Education devoted to increasing funding for Social Work practicum students. Additionally, we continue to provide support for and build momentum around establishing more P4P chapters at colleges and universities across Texas. Stay tuned for opportunities to show your support and get involved on FED UP’s instagram and link tree. Much work remains, but we are committed to supporting and uplifting one another along the way. Onwards!