COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) - A task force at the University of Missouri is recommending improvements for graduate students, including higher pay.
The task force's recommendations include raising graduate student stipends and improving their access to housing and childcare, the Columbia Daily Tribune (http://bit.ly/1Zg2Ulk) reported. Graduate students have been asking for the changes throughout the school year.
University administrators told graduate assistants in August that health insurance subsidies would no longer be offered because of an IRS interpretation of the Affordable Care Act. The university went back on that plan after getting backlash.
Graduate students formed a group unaffiliated with the university. The group gave a list of demands to administrators and advocated for better benefits.
Eric Scott, a doctoral student studying English at the university, called the task force's recommendations a "huge vindication" for students' demands.
"We have a university task force that is essentially agreeing with all of the demands we have been making all along," said Scott, who has helped lead a committee within the student-formed group.
The task force was formed by the university last spring and was charged to look into long-term options. It said in its report that its work was affected by the decision on insurance subsidies, the university's changing of its graduate student tuition waiver policy, and "the turmoil relating to race relations" and university leadership changes in the fall.
Those three incidents, the report said, caused the task force to either reconsider its "current direction" or "change the nature of our work."
The report from the task force recommends that the minimum stipend for doctoral students be increased to $18,000 for 20-hour appointments by 2020, and that master's students should get a proportional increase. Graduate assistants get a stipend in exchange for their research and teaching for the university.
Scott said he was "pleasantly surprised" by the stipend increase proposed by the task force.
"I personally make about $14,000 a year, so that feels like a substantial jump to me," Scott said.