Hey, I was at one point a grad student. I was never paid less than minimum wage.
In fact, I was paid more than groundskeepers and janitorial staff at the university I worked at.
I say this not to say “pay grad students less”, but just to point out that the job “grad student” isn’t the miserable crushing poverty that people make it out to be. It just isn’t. Sure, it’s the closest to poverty that many people in academia experience, but it’s nothing like the real thing. The real thing is experienced by the staff of the university.
Also notice how in academia there’s this idea of the university as a community. The non-faculty staff of a university are basically never considered part of this community. They keep it running, they make sure that students, faculty, and administration have nice clean facilities, but those facilities are not meant to be used by janitors, cooks, groundskeepers and the like. The people who take care of the facilities are not the same people who use them.
Sorry, I know this comment is pretty unrelated, but I think it’s important to keep in mind that even though grad students are often treated pretty shittily, it’s simply not the same as how janitors, groundskeepers, cooks and so on are treated.
Hey, I was at one point a grad student. I was never paid less than minimum wage.
In fact, I was paid more than groundskeepers and janitorial staff at the university I worked at.
I say this not to say “pay grad students less”, but just to point out that the job “grad student” isn’t the miserable crushing poverty that people make it out to be. It just isn’t. Sure, it’s the closest to poverty that many people in academia experience, but it’s nothing like the real thing. The real thing is experienced by the staff of the university.
Also notice how in academia there’s this idea of the university as a community. The non-faculty staff of a university are basically never considered part of this community. They keep it running, they make sure that students, faculty, and administration have nice clean facilities, but those facilities are not meant to be used by janitors, cooks, groundskeepers and the like. The people who take care of the facilities are not the same people who use them.
Sorry, I know this comment is pretty unrelated, but I think it’s important to keep in mind that even though grad students are often treated pretty shittily, it’s simply not the same as how janitors, groundskeepers, cooks and so on are treated.