Views expressed in opinion columns are the author’s own.
In my four years at the University of Maryland, I’ve served as an undergraduate teaching assistant for not one, not two, but four classes under three different departments. During those four semesters, I earned eight credits total and $400 from the government and politics department.
While paying TAs can be difficult due to funding deficits, it is unreasonable to ask that students take upward of 10 hours each week to develop lesson plans, create PowerPoints and re-learn curricula, to only be compensated with credits or a minimal stipend.
This university needs to invest in standardizing hourly pay for all undergraduate teaching assistants.
In the computer science department, undergraduate TAs are paid $16 per hour for 10 hours per week. But TAs in the English department are compensated only with course credit.
Programs in the business school, such as the Accounting Teaching Scholars, compensate their TAs with $17.50 per hour for 15 hours per week. The paid programs make it easier for undergraduates to engage in teaching and improve their leadership skills without the financial burden of not receiving pay. When we dedicate hours to help our fellow students and improve their college experiences, we deserve to be compensated for our work.
Many people will tell me I should just seek out the programs that pay their TAs by the hour. But if students are more inclined to apply to paid positions, the departments with unpaid roles could face not enough prospective interest. The most equitable solution for this problem is to pay every TA the same rate per hour across the board.
Why is it that we can’t seem to standardize this?
It isn’t that this university wouldn’t be able to find the funding, because when pressured, it has found a way to commit to compensating students. Last year, Maryland Images successfully pushed the university to get funding to pay their tour guides $15 per hour. So, if TAs went on strike and stopped teaching until they got paid, would this school commit? Something tells me they would.
If this university can afford to pay tour guides, it can afford to make sure all TAs are appropriately compensated for their time and effort. As someone who loves to teach – and hopes to teach in the future – it is hard for me to commit to being a TA when that time could be spent on a paying job to help afford groceries, school supplies or even application fees for graduate school.
Even in the education college, where students are about to dive into a world of teaching for a living, TAs are compensated only through course credit and mentoring from faculty. While beneficial, it doesn’t make up for the loss of financial support from an hourly wage.
Getting the funding to support TAs could happen in multiple ways. The university reserves the right to increase or decrease tuition at any point. If it were to raise tuition, they could increase funding for TA programs to standardize how much TAs earn per semester. This could also lead to introducing new mandatory fees to provide for student services and employment.
There is a way to make this work for students.
I will graduate having taught more than 100 students, having spent hundreds of hours developing my teaching skills and designing ideas for curricula, only having made $400 from one stipend. I don’t want this experience to be what other students face on this campus – this university has the ability to change it. Pay all TAs an hourly wage across the board.
Jahnavi Kirkire is a senior government and politics and public policy major. She can be reached at jkirkire@umd.edu.
