Raising Children, Earning Degrees: Childcare Benefits for the University of Texas System Graduate Students to Increase Student Diversity and Dignity

Executive Summary

Academic Student Employees, Graduate Student Researchers, Postdocs, and Academic Researchers (hereafter referred to as “Graduate students”) in the University of Texas (UT) system are under-supported by universities in terms of adequate financial support and family policy, despite their contributions to university life, including teaching, research, and support. This is evidenced by:

• Salaries below federally-defined livable wages
• A dearth of family-related policies to support graduate students with families, leading to much of their monthly paychecks going toward childcare support

Academic Student Employees, Graduate Student Researchers, Postdocs, and Academic Researchers (hereafter referred to as “Graduate students”) in the University of Texas (UT) system are under-supported by universities in terms of adequate financial support and family policy, despite their contributions to university life, including teaching, research, and support. This is evidenced by:

• Salaries below federally-defined livable wages
• A dearth of family-related policies to support graduate students with families, leading to much of their monthly paychecks going toward childcare support

Although some universities have taken action to support graduate students with families, more systems and campus-level change is needed. While individual UT campuses set financial and HR policies, the UT system ultimately approves campus-level policy. Thus, the UT system has the authority to regulate campus-level graduate student policies. To attract diverse students and treat students and families with dignity, there are policies the UT system could implement to aid graduate students, including:

• Regulating childcare subsidies for graduate students
• Creating system-level changes such as expanding healthcare coverage
• Providing or creating on-campus childcare centers
• Regulating childcare subsidies for graduate students
• Creating system-level changes such as expanding healthcare coverage
• Providing or creating on-campus childcare centers

Introduction

Graduate students contribute to universities through coursework, independent projects, and dissertations. University teaching depends on graduate students who assist faculty, support undergraduate learning, and instruct courses. Graduate students are expected to engage in outreach and public scholarship to build academic portfolios.

However, the cost of higher education in the US, including associated costs of living, has risen dramatically in the past few decades, but graduate stipends are modest, and typical graduate students' workloads may not allow for additional jobs. For example, median stipend amounts in psychology doctoral programs range from roughly $14,000 to $17,000 for nine months, depending on discipline and location, and are often only nine-month funding periods. These amounts are either at or slightly above the federal poverty rate for a single person household. A single adult with no children living in Dallas County, Texas would require an annual living wage of roughly $64,742 before taxes to live comfortably in North Texas.

However, the minimum graduate stipend in the Behavioral and Brain Sciences school at the University of Texas at Dallas, a state university located in Dallas County, is roughly $26,500 a year before subtracting $16,000 per semester for tuition and fees. Despite modest stipends, students all over the world continue to pursue graduate education for the sake of scientific curiosity and discovery, as well as for career purposes (i.e., to become a tenure-track professor, you need to have completed graduate education), and to achieve a level of credibility in some fields.

Graduate students with children prior to and/or during graduate school may experience the burden of finding affordable childcare. Childcare prices vary across the United States, but prices are generally untenable across all care types, populations, and ages.

Single-parent/earner households and those with income below county medians are less likely to have affordable childcare. With full-time, center-based childcare facilities often costing more than tuition and fees at a four-year state university, many graduate programs offer childcare subsidies for students. However, these subsidy amounts vary, and the share of public universities and colleges offering childcare has declined. Thus, university-level access to high-quality affordable childcare is warranted so graduate students can fulfill their training.

Previous Solutions at the University Level

Most universities do not operate under state- or national-level governance; they set graduate benefits through institution-specific boards of trustees or local administrators. An exception is the University of California system, whose 26-member, governor-appointed Board of Regents can shape policy across UC’s ten campuses and 25,000+ graduate students. As a result of rising costs of living and student protests, The University of California system recently expanded its child-care benefits for graduate students, including increased childcare reimbursement, promotion of university childcare, and allowing dependents to receive insurance. Given the systemic (e.g., both oversee a large number of schools and students, both are appointed by the state governor) and demographic similarities (graduate students vary in terms of race, background, etc.) between the California and Texas systems, strategies from the University of California system could translate to the University of Texas system.

What Can Be Done?

The University of Texas system level could adopt:

· Childcare reimbursement: $1,023/quarter or $1,364/semester, plus $1,023 for summer, per qualifying child. This is half the cost of annual childcare in TX, as reported by the MIT living wage calculator. These additional funds would come from individual campuses’ budgets, which may unfortunately result in fewer graduate student admission spots. However, Gov. Greg Abbott could approve more funding for the UT System.

· Paid Leave: Expand to nine paid weeks per year for serious health conditions, family care, baby bonding, pregnancy or childbirth-related needs. This is a significant increase from the current paid leave policies at UT Austin and UT Permian Basin, both of which offer no paid leave for grad students. Nine weeks of paid leave is the national average for states/districts with paid leave laws.

· Insurance Benefits: UT will pay 100 percent of dependent child premiums for eligible graduate students.

Campus level could adopt:

· Graduate Students can participate in campus childcare programs.

Conclusions

Current University of Texas policies do little to support graduate students with children (e.g., paid parental leave is not guaranteed, children only under age 13 qualify for certain benefits). Further, in Texas, single infant child care is roughly $9,000, already 15% of median family income. We recommend the UT system adopt policies to support graduate students with children and attract diverse students. Moreover, such actions would signal to students, faculty, and society that the UT system treats students and their families with dignity and recognizes the value that diverse students and their families bring to universities.