The stipend was raised Aug. 16 to $1500 according to a FOIA submitted in March.

This is great news because graduate assistants aren’t given enough credit for the work they do. Not only do they have their own homework and coursework to do, they also help teach others and contribute. 

Before graduate assistants often times had to have other jobs as well to help pay for necessities.The stipend increase is also motivating graduate assistants to focus on teaching well and on their own schoolwork. With the prices of tuition, food plans, books, etc. it’s good that the college is spending a fraction of that money to help students focus on their school work.

“I’ve known several people who have stopped being full-time [employees]… to become GAs because the wage increase was such a huge difference,” Natasha Johnson said in an article for the Northern Star.

College students very often find themselves feeling overburdened whether it’s homework, job troubles, relationship issues, or family matters. By paying more it’s taking some of that burden of their shoulders.

There are a total of 1248 graduate assistants working this year so any help they can receive is always beneficial. Helping graduate assistants helps out students as well in the long run because having motivated graduate assistants creates motivated students. 

“You feel like more responsible; you will work much more harder to teach your students [and] you will be more [patient] when students [are] actually complaining, so that [stipend raise] probably helps you a lot,” said Paramahansa Pramanik in an article on the stipend raise from the Northern Star.