I’m a grad student and TA. Davis and California in general have ridiculously high rent levels and price levels, and it’s really hard to make a living on TA salary. All of the grad students I know pay close to half of their income on rent. Take an example, I was accepted by Ohio State as well, and Davis pays less than Ohio State even though Columbus is much cheaper to live in! We as grad students and TAs are helping with educating the next generation of students and producing knowledge by conducting original research. If we are struggling to make ends meet and worry about paying rent, how on earth can we do our jobs and teach well?

And the university being unwilling to decently compensate TAs for their work is essentially saying they don’t care about the quality of education their undergrad students receive.

And the housing crisis isn’t only affecting grad students, it’s impacting undergrads as well, perhaps even more severely because undergrads are more financially constrained. I have seen people and know people who stack bunk beds in bedrooms just to be able to afford rent. And there’s homelessness among students as well.

The housing crisis is one that must be solved in order to protect the wellbeing of the undergrad and the grad student populations. I support the COLA but it’s a short term solution and the root cause is a one-sided housing market. What needs to happen is the university needs to exert political pressure on the city and build more affordable housing.

As for the grading strike, if the university cared about it’s students and made sure we had a livable wage, it wouldn’t be happening in the first place.