Teaching Assistants (TAs) at Indiana University do everything from holding office hours to grading assignments and even leading discussions and labs. Junior Tori Heighton is a TA for the Paul H. O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs. She feels, like many TAs, that she is not compensated fairly for the amount of work that she puts into the position. On top of multiple clubs, another job, and all her class work, she says she applied for the position with the intention of trying to help the students whose shoes she was once in.

“I am voluntarily taking time out of my week, like away from school to do this….I feel like that value I have should be worth more,” Heighton said when asked the question that sparked the story in the first place: Is TA pay equal to their work? This semester, Heighton is working for an adjunct professor who resides in Indianapolis over an hour away. Due to his absences, without having an on-campus TAs help, this particular class would be unable to occur. The professor tasked Heighton with grading assignments on top of holding office hours, despite the university only allowing her to work a weekly maximum of five hours.

“This week I am grading the first assignment for fifty-two students. It’s eight questions long and they’re all short answer..It took me like, forty-five minutes to grade five of them,” said Heighton. She says that as soon as her five-hour work maximum is up, she has to wait until the next week to continue her grading.

When speaking to Charles Pope, who is in charge of assigning TA positions for the Luddy School of Infomatics, he sided with the students on this one.

“I definitely want to be able to pay our TAs more…” says Pope, “…I think it would give a little more prestige to the position again.” Though Pope only works with assignments for one school, he believes pay should be increased for TA positions campus-wide considering the pay and roles are all different. During interview, he says he is currently doing what he can to advocate for the students including being vocal during staff meetings.

Pay increased in the Luddy School by one-dollar an hour this year for the first time in a decade, and other schools pay increased even less. Both Pope and Heighton, along with many other TAs, are hoping that they will not have to wait another ten years for the next change. With inflation increasing rapidly and  the importance of TA’s seemingly increasing with it, there is hope for increase in TA compensation, but nothing is confirmed at this time.