Graduate workers at the University of Kentucky are demanding higher pay and an end to fees for international graduate students!

Graduate workers are an essential part of nearly every facet of the University of Kentucky’s operations. They teach many of the university’s entry level courses where they provide important institutional support to first and second year students, they supply critical labor to research that has significant value to the university, and they transform their respective disciplines through their cutting-edge scholarship. The University of Kentucky could not function without the hard work and contributions of its graduate workers.

However, in spite of their important role, graduate workers face serious economic hardships as they navigate their time studying and working for this university. With annual incomes as low as $14k/year, many graduate students find themselves burning through savings, going into debt, and leaning on critical campus social services, like the Big Blue Pantry and ONE (the campus community cafe), just to make it through the semester. This creates inequities in access to graduate school, and it means that those who are here often have to decide between a doctor’s visit and going to an academic conference, or a car repair and childcare services. Graduate workers are often working extra jobs and managing chronic stress as a result of their financial situation, all of which adversely impact their ability to perform the kind of research and teaching that their campus community needs and deserves.

In April 2023, the university announced their plan to align graduate student pay with the national averages laid out in an Oklahoma State University survey. By the UK Graduate Stipend and Benefits Committee’s own admission, this plan will mean that very few departments will see pay increases at all. While we welcome the move towards baseline minimum pay for graduate workers, using market comparatives as a benchmark for these baselines means that the majority of graduate workers across the university will be forced to continue to survive throughout their programs without a living wage. With the cost of living in Lexington rising 6.5% over the last year (7.5% higher than the national average), more and more of our graduate workers are finding it harder and harder to get by, let alone plan for their futures. Rather than settling with dismally low national averages, the University of Kentucky can and should become a leader among its peer institutions by paying a living wage to all graduate students, regardless of discipline.

Even in the face of these challenges, graduate workers at UK have, since 2020, worked to build their own independent worker organization, United Campus Workers, to fight for more dignified and stable living conditions. As a union of workers campuswide, graduate workers have come to understand that graduate pay is not a department-level issue, and that change is possible when we stand together.