I had a similar experience at another UC, where I lectured (and am now a PhD student!) -- and the general thrust here is correct: lecturers are often paid a FTE-equivalent salary that is not much higher than what a graduate student would be paid.
That said, there are a few pieces to this that unfortunately didn't make it into the article:
1) At that pay rate, the TA would have been expected to work at 50% effort (20h/week) in that position, in order to earn that salary.
2) At my UC, a "full-time" load for lecturers is 6 courses per year, or 3 per semester. (This may be different at quarter-system UCs.) That means that a course is considered 1/3 of full-time, not 50%, with an expected time commitment of ~ 13h/week over that same time period.
3) Thus from a "compensation for labor" perspective, the hourly rate for the TA is thus about 30% less than the lecturer -- of course, this rests on many assumptions about how much time is actually spent per course -- and the TA is expected to spend quite a bit more time on the course than the lecturer is. (This ignores the work needed to develop a course, of course, but often lecturers are asked to teach already-designed courses.)
The kicker, though, is that the TA is probably also getting their tuition covered, an extra benefit worth $7-15k, depending on a student's circumstances, and depending on whether you believe this tuition reimbursement is an accounting gimmick, as some do. If you do include this amount, the TA is indeed paid much more than the lecturer!
"Tuition reimbursement" is definitely an accounting gimmick, at least once you're done taking classes. After qualifying exams, the idea that a PhD candidate is receiving anything that you would pay tuition for is laughable. You're doing research and teaching, both of which are things a professor does, albeit at a smaller scale and with some oversight/guidance, but that is far more akin to having a manager than having a course instructor. I'm all for including tuition as a concept when you're still taking courses, but after that point it makes no sense.
I think the typical argument about tuition being an "accounting gimmick" is that it's the univerity paying itself for something -- does it actually come out of a budget, paid for by other students? (Unclear.) If there were no "tuition", would that money instead go to the student? (Unlikely.)
The question of whether senior doctoral students who aren't taking classes anymore should be paying tuition is a good one too! In the case described in the original article, though the student was in a masters program and quite likely taking classes—so not quite this scenario.
Anecdotal data from the grad programs in my area is that at least for PhD students your supervisor pays their tuition from whatever funding source they use to pay the stipend.
Yes, and the supervisor also pays a fraction (often 50%+!) of any incoming grant money to “overhead” — to the institution, for lab space, staff, operations, etc.
Why some of this money is categorized as “tuition” and other money as “overhead” is at the root of the question I think.
Comments
I had a similar experience at another UC, where I lectured (and am now a PhD student!) -- and the general thrust here is correct: lecturers are often paid a FTE-equivalent salary that is not much higher than what a graduate student would be paid.
That said, there are a few pieces to this that unfortunately didn't make it into the article:
1) At that pay rate, the TA would have been expected to work at 50% effort (20h/week) in that position, in order to earn that salary.
2) At my UC, a "full-time" load for lecturers is 6 courses per year, or 3 per semester. (This may be different at quarter-system UCs.) That means that a course is considered 1/3 of full-time, not 50%, with an expected time commitment of ~ 13h/week over that same time period.
3) Thus from a "compensation for labor" perspective, the hourly rate for the TA is thus about 30% less than the lecturer -- of course, this rests on many assumptions about how much time is actually spent per course -- and the TA is expected to spend quite a bit more time on the course than the lecturer is. (This ignores the work needed to develop a course, of course, but often lecturers are asked to teach already-designed courses.)
The kicker, though, is that the TA is probably also getting their tuition covered, an extra benefit worth $7-15k, depending on a student's circumstances, and depending on whether you believe this tuition reimbursement is an accounting gimmick, as some do. If you do include this amount, the TA is indeed paid much more than the lecturer!
"Tuition reimbursement" is definitely an accounting gimmick, at least once you're done taking classes. After qualifying exams, the idea that a PhD candidate is receiving anything that you would pay tuition for is laughable. You're doing research and teaching, both of which are things a professor does, albeit at a smaller scale and with some oversight/guidance, but that is far more akin to having a manager than having a course instructor. I'm all for including tuition as a concept when you're still taking courses, but after that point it makes no sense.
I think the typical argument about tuition being an "accounting gimmick" is that it's the univerity paying itself for something -- does it actually come out of a budget, paid for by other students? (Unclear.) If there were no "tuition", would that money instead go to the student? (Unlikely.)
The question of whether senior doctoral students who aren't taking classes anymore should be paying tuition is a good one too! In the case described in the original article, though the student was in a masters program and quite likely taking classes—so not quite this scenario.
Anecdotal data from the grad programs in my area is that at least for PhD students your supervisor pays their tuition from whatever funding source they use to pay the stipend.
Yes, and the supervisor also pays a fraction (often 50%+!) of any incoming grant money to “overhead” — to the institution, for lab space, staff, operations, etc.
Why some of this money is categorized as “tuition” and other money as “overhead” is at the root of the question I think.