Penn awards largest one-time pay increase to doctoral students, while Temple remains in negotiations

Following recent moves by other major universities, the University of Pennsylvania awarded nearly a 25% increase in its minimum pay for doctoral students — the largest one-time boost in the school’s history.

Starting in 2023-24, the minimum stipend will rise from $30,547 to $38,000. Penn enrolled 3,445 doctoral students in fall 2021, according to its website.

“This one-time increase recognizes the unique pressures they currently face, especially in the wake of delays to research and hiring that many experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic,” interim provost Beth A. Winkelstein said in a statement. “It will also help to ensure that Penn remains competitive in recruiting exceptional scholars.”

» READ MORE: Graduate students at Temple inch closer to a strike

Students were pleased with the announcement and said it recognizes the advocacy efforts they have made for better pay for years.

“This is a significant step to demonstrate the university’s commitment to graduate students,” Robert Blake Watson, president of the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly, said in an email to students this week.

Some other major universities have been boosting pay, too. A year ago, Princeton announced a 25% increase in its doctoral student stipend rates, its largest one-time increase. Pay there went from $31,720 to $40,000. Yale in April announced increases in some cases as high as 14%. In September, Duke University said it would give students a one-time $1,000 payment in October and an 11.4% increase in its stipend for 2023-24. Also last semester, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill said it would raise pay 25%.

Michael T. Nietzel, former president of Missouri State University, wrote last month in Forbes that the increases have come as more graduate students around the country are forming unions and demanding better pay. He noted union efforts underway at Yale, Boston University, Florida State, the University of Chicago, and Johns Hopkins.

At Temple University in November, the graduate students’ association, which represents about 750 graduate student teaching and research assistants — who teach core undergraduate courses and assist professors with research — voted to authorize the negotiating committee to call a strike if necessary. The university and association, which have been negotiating for about a year, are scheduled to return to the table next week, said Bethany Kosmicki, a graduate research assistant in the sociology department and a member of the negotiating team. A strike remains an option, she said.

Kosmicki said her team saw the increase that Penn awarded to its doctoral students and brought it up at the negotiating table last month. Graduate students at Temple earn an annual stipend of $19,000 to $20,000. Like at Penn, they also receive free tuition.

“We were happy to see that one of the universities in the city is paying grad workers what it costs to live here,” she said.

Temple’s response, she said, was “We’re not Penn.”

In a statement, Temple said: “Each university, like every employer, has different levels of resources and considerations when making decisions on major cost items like compensation.”

The university maintained that its proposed increases and benefit package, which includes free health coverage for the students, allow the school to attract top scholars while “also being responsible stewards of limited university resources during a time of various budget pressures, some of which are different for public universities vs. private institutions like Penn.”

The union has been seeking a 50% wage increase in year one and 3% wage increases in each of the next three years, health care for dependents and family members, better parental and bereavement leave, and child-care subsidies, as well as changes in grievance procedures and other contract adjustments.

Temple said it had offered a 3% increase each year for four years, plus a one-time payment of $250 or $500 depending on the student’s active employment. The raises, the school said, are consistent with what other bargaining units have received. The school said it also offered additional parental and bereavement leave.

At Penn, Watson said the historic increase came after years of students’ pushing for better pay but also as a result of a spike in the cost of living, the struggles students faced during the pandemic, and the desire to remain competitive with pay offered by other top schools.

“If other universities are paying their students significantly more than Penn, that attracts those students away,” said Watson, 24, a third-year law student from Kentucky who also is pursuing a master’s in education policy.

The university also noted the stipend emerged as a priority on a survey last spring of graduate and professional students.

Actual pay varies among graduate students in its nine schools. The announced increase reflects the minimum stipend for doctoral students.

Ludwig Zhao, the student association’s research council chair, said students were surprised and excited by the outcome. His group, which was led by Jaydee Edwards last year, spearheaded efforts to get the increase.

“But we would like the university to continue their commitment to support students both financially and mentally during the time of their stay at Penn,” said Zhao, a third-year bioengineering graduate student from Los Angeles.