Dear Campus Community,
Graduate students reflect the very best of Berkeley and are invaluable contributors to the teaching, research and public service mission of the university. Each year, Berkeley annually awards the most doctoral degrees in the nation and serves more than 11,800 doctoral, master’s and professional students.
As you may be aware, the UC system reached a four-year contract with the University’s more than 11,000 academic student employees represented by UAW in August 2018 and that agreement is in place through June 2022. We, as well as the graduate students represented by the UAW, are bound by the terms of this agreement and the UC system has decided not to re-open the agreement. Nevertheless, campus leadership has been engaged in ongoing conversations with union leadership to discuss issues related to student funding and basic needs. To this end, we have invited the UAW and Graduate Assembly to share their perspectives on these issues at a meeting with us.
Following the graduate student rally on Sproul Plaza on Friday, Feb. 21, campus leadership received a letter with a list of demands, primarily addressing cost of living adjustments and concerns related to the strike at UC Santa Cruz. We thank the graduate student community for sharing their concerns.
With a large graduate student population comes significant challenges in ensuring financial support that allows our students to pay for housing and other living expenses. In the 2017 University of California Cost of Attendance Survey, UC Berkeley students reported the third-highest housing costs in the UC system, as well as one of the highest monthly costs for the dependent care and food-related expenses.
To address these urgent needs, UC Berkeley is working to increase our inventory of graduate student housing, augment our multi-year funding packages, and streamline our systems for providing emergency aid to students in need.
Between 2009-10 and 2018-19, total financial support for graduate students has increased by 48%, including a 45% increase in funding for Graduate Student Instructors and a 56% increase in university fellowship awards. It is one of our highest priorities to further increase this support over the next four years.
The Graduate Division is committed to increasing funding for our graduate students and making that support more predictable. We appreciate these funding decisions are made at the department level and are committed to working with departments to find ways to provide as much financial security as possible for our graduate students. We also remain committed to increasing the availability of both merit- and need-based support for all graduate students, including master’s and professional students.
We have vowed to double campus housing for students in the next 10 years and to prioritize students’ basic needs as part of the university’s strategic plan. Through a mixture of new construction and leases, the university is on track to expand our transit-friendly housing inventory by an additional 400 beds for undergraduate and graduate students in 2021.
Berkeley remains committed to supporting its graduate students — mind, body, and soul — throughout their educational journeys and to working with graduate student leaders to find solutions to our ongoing challenges.
Sincerely,
Lisa García Bedolla
Vice Provost for Graduate Studies and Dean of the Graduate Division
Eugene Whitlock
Assistant Vice Chancellor, Human Resources/Chief People & Culture Officer
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