NIU graduate assistants will get a 10 percent discount on all books bought at the University Bookstore this fall for their assistance to faculty and staff.

Graduate assistants were given the advantage of a charge system to buy books as a bonus for their work with the faculty, said Holmes Student Center Director Judd Baker.

But because this fall all registered students will be able to use the charge system the first four weeks at NIU, the graduate assistants would have been treated as other students.

Graduate School Dean Jerrold Zar suggested the discount to Baker.

“It’s like a fringe benefit,” Zar said. Graduate assistants are part-time NIU employees and are important to the teachers, he said.

“They are deserving of it,” Baker said. “We thought it would be kind of a nice thing (for the graduate assistants).”

Graduate School Business Manager Rita Reynolds said, “It’s nice to give students something.” Reynolds said she suggested the discount to Zar for all the work graduate assistants go through.

All NIU graduate assistants are graduate students who have obtained their baccalaureate degrees.

Zar said the university would be “lost” without the nearly 1,200 graduate assistants who work with the faculty. Graduate assistants help professors teach lectures, teach science labs and help do research, he said.

During the academic year, graduate assistants get between $450 to $910 a month and work about 20 hours a week, he said.

Baker said the bookstore will make periodical checks to see if the 10 percnet discount is being used and that the discount does not hurt the bookstore financially.