
In Santa Cruz, a graduate student strike grows out of a housing crisis - benbreen
https://newrepublic.com/article/156591/wildcat-strike-grows-housing-crisis
======
bcsphd
UC Berkeley CS PhD student here. I can definitely empathize with the UCSC
strikers---housing costs are also insane here, although we get payed a bit
more.

CS PhDs here have it relatively good, at about $55K / year before taxes, but
it's still common for us to spend more than 30-50% of income on rent. (Even in
shared housing, it's very difficult to find anything cheaper than $1.3K /
month.)

I do know that for students in other departments, money is extremely tight,
and they often have very limited options and periods of housing insecurity. As
a side note, the homelessness problem in Berkeley has gone from bad to insane
over the past few years that I've lived here. I essentially never leave my
house, in a pretty posh part of Berkeley, without an uncomfortable interaction
(homeless people in various states of undress, under the influence of drugs,
talking to themselves, or screaming).

Meanwhile, the UCs (and UC Berkeley in particular) continue to expand a very
expensive bureaucracy (I question how many $500K/year vice provosts we really
need). It's not that they don't have the money to pay grad students more, but
that they're not incentivized to allocate it towards making grad students'
lives better.

Unfortunately, there's an apathetic attitude among many students on campus of,
essentially, "doing your time and getting out," since they know, at least in
STEM, that there's a pile of money waiting on the other side.

It will be interesting to see what happens over the next few months and
whether the COLA campaign expands to other UCs. The UC administration is very
fearful of union organizing (as evidenced by the many weird anti-union emails
the university sent out in 2018, during the last contract negotiation).

~~~
jseliger
It is also interesting to read the first sentence of the article: _The
33-year-old single mother and third-year anthropology graduate student_

30-year olds should not be starting anthro PhDs in almost any circumstances.

Many grad students and adjuncts have made and are making bad life choices:
[https://jakeseliger.com/2016/02/25/universities-treat-
adjunc...](https://jakeseliger.com/2016/02/25/universities-treat-adjuncts-
like-they-do-because-they-can)

~~~
whyenot
Sometimes women choose to postpone their academic careers until after they
start a family. Some of my best friends have had success doing that. It's not
necessarily a bad life choice.

You know what can be a bad life choice? Trying to get through grad school, and
then finding a job, and then getting through tenure, all while your biological
clock is ticking, ticking, ticking, waiting for that day when you can settled
down and have kids, a day that in the end may never come.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
But as a single mom or dad? I can see doing grad school on my own or maybe
with a kid and the support of a partner, but not with a kid and no supporting
partner.

~~~
NotSammyHagar
Life comes at you and you have to deal with it. However I can say CS grad
school was really hard just with me. I don't know how I would have handled a
kid. We should support each other in life whenever possible.

~~~
ethbro
A few of my female friends were in similar situations.

Don't discount the drive that caring for a child you love can provide.

(They're all superheroes, and I live in awe of the load they've carried, but I
think their child definitely helped them get through some rough times)

~~~
seanmcdirmid
My kid has required more effort than my PhD ever did. I enjoy it, but I can’t
imagine having to do both.

------
kaikai
I lived in Santa Cruz for over 10 years and grew up in the area. The tech
industry has had hugely negative effects on Santa Cruz. It's a long but doable
commute to the south bay (including Netflix), and there's shuttles to many of
the larger tech companies. The job market in Santa Cruz is dismal; the
university is a major source of jobs but other than that it's mostly small
town service jobs. Trying to live in Santa Cruz AND work in Santa Cruz is very
difficult.

Home ownership is out of reach for the vast majority of people who work in the
area, and the rental market is dominated by students living off of student
loans or family support rather than supported by local jobs.

There is no easy answer, because as others have noted, Santa Cruz is
surrounded by ocean and greenspace, and full of NIMBYs who want to limit
development. I can't blame them; the city is cute and many of the
neighborhoods are lovely. It's just a shame that it's becoming a bedroom
community for Silicon Valley rather than a self-sustaining town in its own
right.

~~~
ng12
> There is no easy answer, because as others have noted, Santa Cruz is
> surrounded by ocean and greenspace

California's coastline is over 800 miles long and most of it is equally as
picturesque as Santa Cruz. Driving down the 1 you'll pass through a hundred
small towns with relatively affordable homes and plenty of oceanfront scenery.
The primary value of SC is that it's close to the Bay Area and that's what it
should be optimized for.

~~~
thedance
Most of California's coastline is sheer cliffs. There are reasons why our
cities are where they are.

~~~
nostrademons
The GP is largely correct though. There are tons of incredibly beautiful small
coastal towns in California - Crescent City, Fort Bragg, Gualala, the whole
Point Reyes region from Bodega Bay to Stinson Beach, Pacifica, Half Moon Bay,
Pescadero, Watsonville/Moss Landing, the Carmel/Monterey area, Morro Bay,
Santa Barbara, etc. Cliffs or not, there are real settlements there, and
they're gorgeous, even prettier than Santa Cruz. What they don't have is easy
proximity to the jobs and tech wealth in the Bay Area.

~~~
selimthegrim
And exactly how affordable is Morro Bay these days?

~~~
nostrademons
When it comes to CA real estate it's all relative. You can get a 3BR with
ocean views in Morro Bay for about $775K these days, while an equivalent
property in Santa Cruz is about $1M. You can also get roughly equivalent (2BR)
places in Santa Cruz for about $750-$800K, but they're in the flats, without
much of a view.

What I don't understand is why people who aren't tied down to a metro area
would buy in CA instead of elsewhere on the Pacific Coast. Equivalent places
in Astoria, OR go for $300K. Weather and politics, I guess: you can also get
places like that in Crescent City for $300K or even less, but the fog is a lot
heavier than the Central CA coastline, it's colder, and the politics are a lot
more red-state.

~~~
kelnos
I'd guess that many, maybe even most, people _are_ tied down to a metro area.

Job, social circles, family... after you've been in a place for a few years,
many people find it hard to leave.

I think about my own situation. I'm happy at my job, but I could feasibly go
remote and still work for the same company. I don't have any family in the
area (they're all on the east coast). But my social circles are here. I do
have good friends who live elsewhere (somewhat scattered, though), but the
thought of "starting over" in that regard just sounds like a hill I don't feel
like climbing.

I'm not exactly the type of person you're talking about, because I do want to
live in a city. But when I look at Seattle, Portland, LA, San Diego, Honolulu,
Austin, Chicago, Boston, NYC, DC... while I could see myself living in some of
those places, the thought of actually making that leap gives me pause. I'm
nearing 40, and I'm not sure I have the appetite to rebuild the relationships
I've been building in the bay area over the last 16 years.

------
prime9973
MIT CS PhD student here. Pretty similar story in Boston/Cambridge. Every grad
student spends most of their income on rent. What's worse is that MIT and
Harvard own a lot of the land in Cambridge and literally have thousands of
students that live outside campus increasing the rent demand. MIT is trying to
do something about it by building new grad dorms with their most recent one
opening up next year but guess what...the rent is insane ... 2.6K a month for
1 bedroom and this is a student dorm... The justification is that its 'below
market rate' but stipends are not at market rate.

~~~
ausbah
$2.6k per month?? where is that? school owned housing in Cambridge? I don't
think I've ever seen prices that high for off campus stuff in the mission hill
& Fenway area

~~~
xnyan
In my experience university housing is almost always more expensive than
market rate, NYU and a few other places excluded. This was true even at my
moderately sized southern United States school with no land pressure. They
know living close to the university is valuable to students and they charge
accordingly.

------
hexeater
About 5 years ago, I asked a politician about housing. The assemblyman told me
that housing is largely controlled at the local level and driven by local city
politics. He explained that voters tend to be home owners and property owners.
The conundrum then is how to make housing affordable without impacting long
term investment of majority of voters. A politician or city council which
actually moved the needle on housing would be putting themselves at risk of
losing many votes, and thus their political careers.

~~~
dntbnmpls
This is the problem. Homes shouldn't be an investment. It should be a
depreciating asset like cars at worst and a human right at best. Especially in
a country as large as the US with so much resources, we shouldn't have turned
homes into an investmens. Productive assets like companies should be
investments.

But at this point, we are trapped. The largest retirement asset for most
people are their homes. It's political suicide to do anything that would hurt
the valuations of homes. If you are an older individual with your home making
up a bulk of your retirement nest egg, you aren't going to vote for policies
that make homes more affordable. And older folks vote more often and in larger
numbers than younger voters.

~~~
zachthewf
I completely agree. It's not just retirement-age people either. I've noticed
many Bay Area peers in their ~early 30s buy their first home and
(understandably) swap camps from "very concerned about housing prices" to
"happily watching their massive investment grow."

Is there any realistic path (even a very optimistic one) towards the Japanese
model of house-as-depreciating-asset in the US?

~~~
magicsmoke
Japan tears down their houses because they're worried about older houses being
unsafe due to earthquake damage.

So I guess the most realistic path would be for the big one to hit California
and destroy all the housing stock.

~~~
fiblye
Also because they get moldy and stink from the humidity, and because many
people believe they have ghosts.

The absolute quickest way to kill home value in Japan is have someone die in
it. Absolutely nobody will want to live in the place and property owners will
warn you before you consider looking at it.

If old people in the US saw their homes as a time-limited investment where
they needed to sell them while they still can in order to ensure their
spouse/kids have money, prices might drop. Maybe bringing back superstitions
is a way millennials can finally take back the housing market.

~~~
legolas2412
I think I should move to Japan and buy cheap haunted houses.

------
ironman1478
I'm really happy they are doing this. As an anecdote, I got into USC's grad
program with a 45k per year salary, which was great! But, the person who was
running the lab actually emailed me saying that I really should think about
entering a PhD program after working in the industry. The quality of life
decrease is so huge when going from 6 figures to sub 50k. I couldn't stomach
it and decided to stay in industry, even though it's something I think about
everyday. In the end, I'd rather have some amount of stability and comfort
taking on the burden of having such a low salary in a high cost of living
area. It's especially frustrating because my job in the industry is so much
easier but I make so much more money. It's extremely unfair for these students
to be paid so little.

------
pengaru
The last 10-15 years has transformed Santa Cruz into something I barely
recognize anymore.

It used to be really great. Abundant free parking, a huge multistory used book
store (Logos), and a house turned cozy coffee shop overflowing with college
students where you could spend entire days studying/working without going
broke (The Perg) and without being a jerk occupying one of the few tables at
the Starbucks or Peets.

The last time I went there ~2 years ago I couldn't find any free parking other
than the grocery store lot, and the coffee shops were hipster cafes without
outlets and overpriced everything on very limited menus. At least there's
still the Red Room.

I'd like to know where the students go to study now instead of The Perg. I
hope they're not paying through the nose at Verve Coffee.

~~~
davidw
The first thing on your list is "abundant free parking".

Not the coast, or the redwoods, or the cool book store, but the free parking.

~~~
pengaru
The free parking had a significant impact on what kind of people you
encountered in town.

I lived in a redwood forest near the coast at the time, so what Santa Cruz
offered in those areas didn't really affect me. I didn't go to Santa Cruz to
see redwoods or the ocean, I went for the quirky town and to hang out around
interesting people in a nearby urban center (I lived in Butano SP).

~~~
rcpt
Don't live in the redwoods it's why we have fires. And I'm not sure what
you're upset about here your nature destroying frontiersman fantasy is still
very much alive in Bonny Doon

~~~
pengaru
> Don't live in the redwoods it's why we have fires. And I'm not sure what
> you're upset about here your nature destroying frontiersman fantasy is still
> very much alive in Bonny Doon

It wasn't illicit, the area around the park isn't well defined and there's
plenty of private property out there which the park's trails run straight
through.

I don't know what you're talking about WRT "frontiersman fantasy", my downtown
Santa Cruz complaints have absolutely no relation to a frontiersman fantasy.

~~~
rcpt
> illicit

The fires are the result of power lines and infrastructure supporting
unnecessary exurban sprawl out into our redwoods. Not to mention the septic
leaking from houses into the rivers and springs.

People should not live up there.

~~~
pengaru
That's just like, your opinion, man.

------
davidw
FWIW: [https://www.santacruzyimby.org/](https://www.santacruzyimby.org/)

------
jmspring
The problem in Santa Cruz is that the city is bordered by greenbelt and the
ocean. Student population when I first attended UCSC was sub(or maybe close
to) 10k. It has grown to nearly 20k, counting part time, etc. In that time,
the university has not built beds to keep up with enrollment. The city
certainly hasn't added thousands of rooms to keep up.

UC housing apparently has to be paid through campus funds, not through what
the state gives it.

When I lived there, I looked into adding an ADU. The city wanted north of 40k
in fees and "improvements" like putting in a sidewalk where one didn't exist
(and doesn't on the whole block).

~~~
strbean
This may be apocryphal, but awhile back I heard there hasn't been a permit
granted for an ADU within Santa Cruz City Limits since the '89 earthquake.

~~~
jmspring
Not true. Many built. Just a lot of red tape around them.

~~~
strbean
Did some research and found an article stating it was 8/year granted pre-2002
and 8/quarter after requirements were eased in 2002.

Gives me some hope for the city :)

------
jccalhoun
As someone with a phd from a Big 10 college and is (happily) teaching at a
community college, I think graduate schools are admitting way too many
students. The math for universities is simple: more grad students = more cheap
labor = fewer tenure track jobs. But ethically, I think it is immoral.

Among the 30 or so people I became friendly with at grad school I think 3 of
them have tenure track jobs at research institutions. 3 or so are at private
liberal arts colleges. I would say 5 or so are at public liberal arts
colleges. I was lucky, after adjuncting for 3 years I finally got a full time
job at a community college. There are a number of people I have lost track of
but I can think of more than 10 that have left academia because they couldn't
find jobs. (I could hit up facebook and track people down to get an accurate
count but I need to go jump in the shower so I can finish getting ready to go
teach!)

------
ccvannorman
From the article: "sparked by West Virginia educators who waged a largely
successful wildcat strike in 2018, even though their right to collectively
bargain was unrecognized by state law".

So.. implying it isn't a legal position to bargain? So bargaining for wages is
therefore ..illegal by default? I don't get this.

~~~
wsxcde
Yeah, many red states have made it illegal to strike. And of course, this
eliminates any possible leverage that employees have over employers to force
better treatment and that is precisely the reason why Republicans have done
this.

------
cultus
With ever-lengthening PhDs, it's getting hard to see many grad programs as not
exploitative.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
There's a reason that we've all been screeching "Grad workers are _workers_!"
as a slogan.

~~~
cultus
Yeah, nowhere else can get away with paying people 20 hrs/week and making them
work 50.

~~~
Balgair
50? You must be joking. It's 80+ these days at R1s.

------
peacockwank
They have very very very high wages already for PhD students though?

True, their rent costs are also very very very high but based on the current
exchange rates the $500 the tag line example person has left over, after rent
each month, is comparable to the amount left after rent, food, etc when doing
a PhD in the UK 6 years ago in a not London location.

It seems that the PhD wages are very high already to compensate for the very
high rent costs.

If the anecdotal evidence given by people in the comments here, concerning
TAing and moonlighting at other nearby research institutes (for ~$10K !) are
both true and common then what is the problem?

~~~
michaelt
During my PhD I received a £1380/month tax-free stipend from EPSRC, and rented
a single room in a shared house for £300/month. So after rent, I had £1080 -
about $1400 - left over to live on.

To me, $500/month sounds like very little. I wasn't trying to pay for a child
either!

~~~
peacockwank
ah I received £1125 a month and paid £600 in rent, so while it was more than
$500 it is pretty close.

------
sjg007
I was at UCLA and I had to rake loans to pay my rent because my PhD stipend
wasn’t enough. Still paying those off. The whole system is foobar. I support
the strike. It’s been a long time coming.

------
justlexi93
The UC system needs to build and/or create housing for all their non-tenured
teaching staff.

------
norswap
The PhD wage situation in the US is simply shameful. I applaud the resolution
of those who still go through with it.

In Belgium, PhD are paid salaries that are competitive with entry-level
programming positions (though under what you can get if you are a little bit
discriminate), and that's for all subject matters. Most of these positions are
state-funded (directly through tax-exempt scholarships, or indirectly via TA
contract with the state-subsidized universities).

I feel like a big reason US universities can get away with this is that they
draw a lot of international students who are happy to accept lower wages for a
chance to live and work in the US.

~~~
cgiles
> The PhD wage situation in the US is simply shameful.

It really isn't. I recently finished my PhD, and now I'm a postdoc. My stipend
was $30K, but, crucially, I wasn't living in a place like Santa Cruz. It was
very easy to live on such a stipend where I was at. I paid $800/mo for a
2-bedroom apartment all to myself. This was not a CS PhD, it was biomedical,
so the stipend was comparable to the normal B.S. salary in that field.

These students' problem is that they chose to do their studies in Santa Cruz.
This is not a normal US PhD student situation, it is yet another dysfunctional
California situation.

If someone is pursuing a PhD, yet can't do the basic math to determine, before
accepting an offer, whether the stipend will allow them to live in the area, I
can't summon much sympathy.

~~~
norswap
Well I agree they should think about it before taking the position.

This does not seem to me incompatible with the idea that not paying your TA a
living wage is shameful.

I also think most of the strikers did think about it. But if the opportunity
comes up to join a movement (which can achieve something, unlike you own
solitary actions) to fix a flawed standard... why not joint it? Be prepared to
face the consequences if it fails though.

------
chriskanan
Graduate student stipends have remained relatively flat for decades, in part
because the size of grants has. When I was a PhD student in San Diego a decade
ago, my stipend was $1800 per month for the last 4 years and $2500 per month
for the first two years. Everyone had to have roommates and pennypinch to make
it work, and every peer who had kids really struggled unless their spouse had
a real income. Being a single parent would be very rough under graduate
student income constraints.

While increasing dollars allocated to grants is hard and requires changing
grant agencies, having TAs make much more than RAs would not really be
feasible. I'd like the universities to greatly increase the amount of
(greatly) subsidized housing available for graduate students, which would go a
long way toward addressing the problem.

------
j7ake
Id be curious to see a list of cost of living adjusted stipends for PhD ranked
across universities. It would be interesting to see what are the top places to
go in terms of highest stipend .

------
musicale
Eventually the graduate serfs will revolt if you take away their housing.

~~~
asdff
there's showers in the lab

------
atarian
There's a lot of things that California gets right. It's too bad housing isn't
one of them.

~~~
mrfusion
What things do they get right? Serious question.

~~~
pengaru
Copious and well run state parks, CA is a really great place to spend time
outdoors.

The local organic produce is _very_ good too.

~~~
pishpash
State parks that cost $10 to visit each one, when there is often nothing in
them? Nah, that state is great at getting at your money and wasting it on
corrupt government.

~~~
Rebles
It's regular park not an amusement park. I don't know what you want "in them"
other than hiking paths, picnic tables, parks free of trash/debris,
respectable camping grounds, running water and toilets. Maybe you're not a
nature person, but that seems worth $10 to me.

------
StanDavis
There's nothing at that link related to the title.

~~~
cultus
Huh? The entire article is related to the title.

------
GuiA
_> The 33-year-old single mother and third-year anthropology graduate student
says she makes around $2,200 a month after taxes as a part-time teaching
assistant at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She also pays around
$1,700 a month for the two-bedroom she shares with her 10-year-old son in
student housing. After that, there’s little money to spare._

Spending 80% of your income on housing is just poor budgeting no matter how
you look at it.

If someone decides that accepting a ~5 year position that pays close to
minimum wage in one of the highest COL areas in the country is the right
choice for them... then what?

Academia is kind of like the video game industry - plenty of young people with
a dream who want to get in, get abused and spat out by the system. Because
guess what, it gets even harder after your PhD. You’ll be paid barely more,
except with even less job stability (you’re now looking for a post doc every
1-2 years, or jumping from adjunct contract to adjunct contract) and more
stress and responsibility. And of course by that point the sunk cost fallacy
has fully set in, you now think of yourself as an Anthropology Professor and
there’s no way you’re going to go back and pick up plumbing or programming.

Ideally grad students would stop pouring in, free labor would dry up at
universities, and they’ll have to raise grad student salaries to acceptable
wages again. Seems unlikely given how badly people want to do anthropology
PhDs, and that there’ll always be people who can afford to take a poorly paid
position like that because their partner or parents are paying the bills.
Maybe unions are the right call, but seems like a strong uphill battle.

~~~
professionalguy
>Ideally grad students would stop pouring in, free labor would dry up at
universities, and they’ll have to raise grad student salaries to acceptable
wages again. Seems unlikely given how badly people want to do anthropology
PhDs, and that there’ll always be people who can afford to take a poorly paid
position like that because their partner or parents are paying the bills.

I like how you phrased that.

One potential solution is some feedback loop telling students how many PhDs in
anthropology we really need. We're currently producing way more PhDs in non-
STEM disciplines than there are post doctoral academic positions (I mean that
broadly; e.g. post-docs, tenure track, full time lectureships).

Instead of giving out 5 PhD spots, maybe a program can give out 1 PhD spot and
pay that student 3x more. They'd save money and could focus on creating one
really good professor, instead of 5 struggling lecturers.

~~~
paconbork
The problem is that having a large body of grad students increases your
research output, allowing you to get more grants and raise the prestige of
your institution at a relatively low cost. Universities are incentivized to
admit more grad students if it leads to these improved outcomes.

~~~
GuiA
And more students running your labs/substituting you for teaching/etc. means
more time to do non-teaching stuff, which is a net positive for most
professors.

How sad was I to realize that I was the only one in my PhD program who had
chosen that route because I was as passionate about teaching as I was about
research!

Feynman:

 _If you 're teaching a class, you can think about the elementary things that
you know very well. These things are kind of fun and delightful. It doesn't do
any harm to think them over again. Is there a better way to present them? Are
there any new problems associated with them? Are there any new thoughts you
can make about them? The elementary things are easy to think about; if you
can't think of a new thought, no harm done; what you thought about it before
is good enough for the class. If you do think of something new, you're rather
pleased that you have a new way of looking at it.

The questions of the students are often the source of new research. They often
ask profound questions that I've thought about at times and then given up on,
so to speak, for a while. It wouldn't do me any harm to think about them again
and see if I can go any further now. The students may not be able to see the
thing I want to answer, or the subtleties I want to think about, but they
remind me of a problem by asking questions in the neighborhood of that
problem. It's not so easy to remind yourself of these things._

[http://www.math.utah.edu/~yplee/teaching/feynman.html](http://www.math.utah.edu/~yplee/teaching/feynman.html)

Well in the end I dropped out (:

