Thursday, April 25, 2013 // 5
The Daily Cougar
OPINION COLLEGE COSTS
Students should get what they pay for D A Y
Ciara Rouege
W
hen I made the decision to enroll at a university immediately following high school, as opposed to attending Lone Star Community College near my house or Houston Community College in the city, it was with that expectation that I was paying extra for better resources and classes taught by well-trained professors. Then there was the recent mess with English teaching assistants, and while they feel cheated for the lack of pay and having to pay to teach to boot, imagine how the students feel. Imagine paying upwards of $1,000 for three credit hours of ENGL 1303 Freshman Composition I only to find out the class is being taught by a student — a graduate student but a student, nonetheless. Students shouldn’t have to pay full prices for classes for taught by graduate students, teaching assistants, TA’s or whatever you want to call them. Since the school is not allowed to list TA’s as instructors in the course registration catalog, students aren’t aware that they are enrolling in a TA’s’ course until the first day of class. This is not to devalue the hard work and effort these graduate students put into maintaining a curriculum, grading assignments and conducting a lecture. It is amazing that these TA’s manage to teach a course and prepare for their classes, alongside managing other aspects of their personal lives. That aside, if the University is not paying TA’s professor-level salaries for graduate students to teach these classes, it is only fair that students shouldn’t have to pay full price to take the courses. The English TA’s were earning between $9,600 and $11,200 annually; for the sake of argument, we’ll split the difference and say $10,400 annually or $867 monthly. In the course of a five-month semester either in the spring (January to May) or fall (August to December), the TAs earn $4,333. If the average student pays, say, $1,000 per three-credit hour course, regardless of the class size, the class is paid for and then some. With all of those savings from not having to pay a professor to teach these courses, you have to wonder where the money is going. Many students on campus are funding their own education by TA continues on page 6
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REMEMBRANCE
Staff Columnist
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Join the Campus Ministries Association and fellow Cougars at the annual Campus Memorial Service for all UH students, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends who passed away last year. Date: Thursday, April 25, 2013 Time: 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM Where : A.D. Bruce Religion Center - University Chapel For more information, visit uh.edu/adbruce
English teaching assistant Lam Dickson hard at work teaching his English 1304 class. Dickson and other TAs get paid considerably less than tentured professors, yet student still have to pay full price for the course regardless of who is teaching it. / Nichole Taylor/The Daily Cougar
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