Dear Chancellor Larive and Campus Provost/EVC Kletzer,
Throughout this campaign, graduate students have given testimony of their experiences trying to survive in Santa Cruz on the inadequate wages and funding we receive from this institution.
We want to give voice to these anonymous accounts to illustrate to administration and faculty how dire our situation really is. We also hope that by sharing these unedited stories, graduate students will realize that they are not alone in these experiences:
“I am finishing up my eighth year as a grad at UCSC and will be finishing up this year. I only wish the COLA campaign had come sooner. I have struggled to make ends meet for basic needs every year as a student here. I have experienced the cost of living go up every year when it was already very expensive upon my arrival in 2012. Now it is simply impossible.
In my first years, I lived in a seasonal property that was discounted for students during the school year and during the summer a high-cost rental by the beach. This was a fortunate find, but I had to leave for the summer and couch surf to make it work. I had a few years living with a partner on whom I was dependent for making rent. My partner had three jobs, I had my TA job, and we were barely scraping by to afford a one-bedroom apartment. The jobs in SC were not available or good enough after a while, and we moved to Oakland. My partner again worked two jobs so that we could make rent with my TA and fellowship salaries.
When I came to UCSC, I received a Chancellor’s Fellowship and was told that I would have 3 years of guaranteed funding and after that, a “dedicated grant writer” for my department to help secure outside funding for grads. By my second year, that grant writer’s position was dissolved and she left. Another grant writer was hired, but grads in my division were informed that that grant writer was exclusively for faculty. It took me three years of applying for grants to get the funding I needed to do my fieldwork research, which extended my time to completion significantly. And yet, I repeatedly get asked by admin in my department why I am not done yet.
After I separated from my partner, making it on my own became very hard. I tried to stretch my fieldwork funding and stay abroad longer because the cost of living was more manageable at my research site. In this way, I have spent about a third of my time abroad, even when I am not doing research, in order to be able to afford to live. While in some ways this has been lucky, it has also meant that I have had less access to resources like health care, library, research facilities, and mentorship from faculty in my department.
When I have had to be in the SC area for TA jobs, I have made that work in various difficult ways. Last spring, I lived in a converted storage container without a kitchen or bathroom in the redwoods of Boulder Creek for $550/month. The reduced rent was certainly helpful, but I had to do all of my cooking in an instant pot and use a nearby campground shower to bathe. My only heating was a tiny wood stove. Despite these work-arounds, I was unable to save any money from my TA salary after paying for car payments, gas to commute to campus, food, medical costs, and phone bill.
Now I live in another reduced rent situation, in exchange for yard work several hours a week. While I am finishing my dissertation, applying for jobs, and TAing, it is super difficult to find time to do extra work in exchange for rent. I still live in Boulder Creek and have to commute. This year I have faced an excess of $1000 in car repair costs, medical and dental costs over $800, and I don’t have enough money to get a haircut or professional clothing for job interviews. I have been trying to get Calfresh for years, but the county does not have provisions for dealing with graduate student situations, which are much different than undergrads. If they look at our monthly TA income, they say we make too much, but they do not take into consideration that we get paid on a quarterly basis, sometimes putting together small grants, TAships, etc. to have a year-round salary, with almost no funding during the nearly 4 months of “summer session.”
We also get paid one month after we begin working each school year, which always causes a hardship. I have thankfully received support from Slug Support to offset some costs, get a $25 gift card to safeway, or deal with unforseen costs like medical and car repair. But they are not able to cover all of these costs. I use the on-campus food banks every week to be able to have enough food to survive.
I have $70K in student loan debt and refuse to take out any more loans. I am middle-aged, rent-burdened, prostrate to the system via student debt, navigating a precarious and overcrowded job market, and trying to finish my doctorate while struggling with basic needs. It is absurd that I should have to live this way. I love what I do but there is no guarantee that it will lead to a job and in the meantime I am struggling every day. I also know that mine is one of the better, more privileged stories. Many of my colleagues are houseless, hungry, and ready to give up. COLA is not just a desire, it is a necessity for all of us!”
These stories aren’t novel or surprising to most of us. And they shouldn’t be surprising to administration, who have completed multiple assessments of graduate student wellbeing. Administrators have ignored and dismissed their own findings, which demonstrate that it is impossible to survive on our stipends in Santa Cruz. We will not be ignored. We will not be dismissed. We will not wait. We will not submit.