Graduate assistants would lose $9 million in pay if denied collective bargaining rights
| Number of graduate students, fall 2017 | Share with assistantships, 2015–2016 school year | Number of graduate assistants | Assistantship amounts, 2015–2016 school year, in 2017–2018 dollars | Overall union premium, 2012–2016 | Overall private sector unionization rate, 2018 | Potential loss in pay | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All private universities | 1,546,065 | – | 57,506 | – | 13.2% | 7.2% | $9,002,024 |
| Private, nonprofit | 1,289,460 | 4.4% | 56,736 | $16,471 | 13.2% | 7.2% | $8,881,517 |
| Private, for-profit | 256,605 | 0.3% | 770 | – | 13.2% | 7.2% | $120,507 |
Methodology: To calculate the number of graduate assistants at nonprofit and for-profit universities, we multiply the total number of graduate students by the share with assistantships for each type of school. We then multiply that number by the overall private sector unionization rate to calculate the number of graduate assistants that would be forgoing a union premium on their assistantship amounts. Since we only have the assistantship amount for graduate assistants and nonprofit private universities, we calculate the union premium in dollars based on that amount. The total potential loss in pay is that union premium multiplied by our estimate of the number of graduate assistants missing out on the premium.
Sources: Bivens et al. 2017; BLS 2019; NCES 2018; Digest of Education Statistics, Table 303.60; NCES 2018; NPSAS:16, Table 7; NCES 2018; NPSAS:16, Table 8 .
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