UVM Graduate Students United

Graduate Students Deserve a Living Wage!

UVM's minimum graduate student stipend is $34,375. The actual cost of living for a single adult in Chittenden County, according to MIT, is $56,036. Even sharing a home with a roommate costs over $40,000 a year. The numbers don't add up. They haven't for years. And they're getting worse.

This dashboard documents the gap between what graduate workers are paid and what it costs to live here — and why we are at the bargaining table fighting to close it.

The Gap Is Not a Rounding Error

The UVM stipend sits just $4,381 above Vermont's minimum wage and tens of thousands below what it actually costs to live in Burlington. Even under the most generous setting, graduate workers end the year more than $6,200 in the hole. Without a roommate: about $15,500 short. Supporting a child? Over $40,000!

Here's Where Every Dollar Goes

The chart below traces the full budget under each scenario. Every dollar of income is committed even before the month begins.

Housing alone consumes a third of the stipend before food, transportation, or healthcare are counted.

Burlington's Rents Have Surged

Housing costs have not held steady. Burlington, and Vermont at large, has seen an big surge in housing costs. HUD's Fair Market Rent — the federal government's own benchmark for what rental housing should cost — has risen sharply across Chittenden County. A one-bedroom that cost $1,223/month in 2020 costs $1,595 in 2024 — a 30% increase in four years, most of it concentrated in a single year. The stipend grew 18.5% over the same period.

A two-bedroom apartment — the basis for the most affordable roommate scenario — now costs $1,887/month: $22,644 annually, or 71% of the entire stipend, before any other expense.

It's Not Just Rent

Between 2020 and 2024, the stipend grew 27%. Food costs rose 43%. Healthcare climbed more than 50%. What looks like a raise is, in real terms, a pay cut.

Other Universities Are Paying More

UVM is far from the only institution that employs graduate workers. But it ranks among the lowest payers of universities where graduate workers have organized. The gap is not a function of what universities can afford, but a function of what they have been made to offer at the bargaining table.

GEO-UAW 2322 is planning to propose a minimum demand of $40,000, This still falls below what graduate workers earn at the University of Michigan and Columbia under their existing union contracts. Rutgers, also in active bargaining, already exceeds UVM's current stipend. Good bargaining has moved the needle at public universities across the country. It can at UVM too.

What We're Asking For

Graduate workers are employees. We teach undergraduate courses, staff research labs, and generate the scholarship that defines this university. We are not asking for extraordinary treatment, we are asking for the bare minimum. We are asking to be paid enough to live in the county where we work, and for that floor to keep pace with rising costs so we are not back making this same argument in two years.

UVM has the resources. What has been lacking is the will. We are at the bargaining table to change that.

We Need Your Support

Data doesn't win contracts, people do. This is not only a graduate worker issue. When the people who teach your courses, staff the labs your research depends on, and mentor the next generation of scholars cannot afford to live in Burlington, the entire university community bears the cost. A fair contract at UVM sets a precedent that matters well beyond this campus.

Acknowledgements ✊❤️

This work was produced in collaboration with the Stipends & Fees Working Group: Baxter Worthing, Ethan Ratliff-Crain, Francis Guarascio, and Hannah Gokaslan.

This dashboard, like so much of what this union produces, rests on the sustained effort and dedication of graduate students at the University of Vermont — past and present. We are deeply grateful for that collective labor.