Testimonies
What the stipend means in practice.
Quotes are shared with the contributor's consent. Most contributors asked to remain anonymous; names appear only where the contributor explicitly opted in. Programs and years are intentionally generic on anonymous entries — pairing a specific program with a personal story could de-anonymize someone in a small department.
Add your voice
Share your experience
Members are invited to submit a short reflection on how the stipend, healthcare, housing, or program policies affect daily life and research. Submissions can be anonymous; the form lets you pick exactly how much attribution you're comfortable with. The organizing committee reviews each entry before it appears on the site.
In their own words
Three voices worth pausing on.
A spotlight from across the testimonies below. Every one is real, shared with the contributor's consent.
I regularly relied on the Swipe Out Hunger meal program and visited local food pantries. A graduate student at a university generating $1.33 billion for Vermont, walking to a food pantry to cover basic nutritional needs.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I'm a disabled U.S. Army veteran. My disability compensation is the only reason I'm staying afloat. The GRA stipend is a joke for what rent and basic living costs in Burlington. The only feasible way to survive here is to have outside support -- from the government, from family, or from somewhere else. That's the system we've built.Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I was using the graduate student gym when the bar came down on my face. In that split second I ran the coverage math: my eyes — no vision insurance. My mouth — no dental. Nose it is. The ER bill was $1,069.05. After insurance, $293.81. I applied for the UVM Emergency Grant to cover it — and I'm grateful it exists — but a grad student working full time needing an emergency grant for an injury in the graduate student gym is its own sentence.
Shahriar Tafti
PhD Student, Neuroscience Graduate Program
Living standards
Living standards
How rent, groceries, transportation, and savings actually shake out at the current stipend — including food insecurity on a research campus that generates over a billion dollars for Vermont.
Between rent, groceries, utilities, and keeping my bike running, I save nothing. I live paycheck to paycheck.
Raghav Bhutani
PhD candidate, Mathematics
I regularly relied on the Swipe Out Hunger meal program and visited local food pantries. A graduate student at a university generating $1.33 billion for Vermont, walking to a food pantry to cover basic nutritional needs.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
Rent is so high I have to share housing even when I badly need my own space. Add student loans and groceries, and there's nothing left — and I can't even consider cheaper housing farther out because public transportation here isn't reliable.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
My partner and I are both grad students splitting rent, and we still live paycheck to paycheck. I chose UVM for the community, but it was the lowest offer I had by far — the others were all $38K or more, and that was two years ago.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I've had to borrow from my parents and my partner just to cover rent and groceries. We have a down payment saved and still can't afford to buy here.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I live in grad housing at Catamount Run with roommates, and rent is still more than one of my paychecks. There's nothing left for emergencies.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
Four years in and one raise, to ~$34,000. I took a 42% pay cut to come back to school. Now I have medical debt in collections.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
Rent takes almost half my monthly wage. After that, utilities and groceries leave nothing for the unexpected.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
Nothing prepares you for how bad the cost of living is until you get here. I had to live in a hotel my entire first semester before I could find permanent housing. My partner and I track every grocery run. If they weren't working a separate job, my monthly costs would equal my monthly pay.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
When I arrived, my first stipend was delayed -- so I was living off savings with no family nearby and no one I knew. Housing at Redstone cost 67.5% of my stipend. I eventually found something cheaper, but paying two rents during the move, plus getting furniture, put me in the red. And cheap housing here comes with real tradeoffs in quality and safety.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I'm a disabled U.S. Army veteran. My disability compensation is the only reason I'm staying afloat. The GRA stipend is a joke for what rent and basic living costs in Burlington. The only feasible way to survive here is to have outside support -- from the government, from family, or from somewhere else. That's the system we've built.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I constantly see grad students experiencing food insecurity -- and the level of need exceeds what campus resources like the Rally Cupboard can actually handle.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I'm a graduate researcher at UVM's medical school. I use the Rally Cat Cupboard and Swipe Out Hunger meal program to get access to food.
Jayita Barua
Graduate Research Assistant, LCOM
There's not enough savings left after rent, groceries, and utilities to meaningfully build a future — despite rigorous personal finance and cooking my own food.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
Gas, groceries, rent — all of it keeps going up, and the stipend doesn't move with it.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
Finding housing that was both affordable and not an hour commute away was very important to me. I know of many students who do not have a car or can not afford a car and finding housing within walking distance on a grad student salary is next to impossible.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
With the increase in cost of living, our salaries should reflect that increase instead of stagnating and allowing us to fall below the poverty line. It is not a sustainable or humane way to live.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I often have to budget between groceries and rent, or rent and a car repair, especially in the winter when heating bills are high.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
Rent and food prices are too high and coupled with out of pocket payment for dental, vision and other unforeseen costs make the current stipend tenuous at best.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I am one rental increase away from choosing between food or rent. I hesitate before I tap my debit card for occasional purchases.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I had to move out of Burlington because my rent was raised in my one bedroom and I couldn't afford it anymore. I live paycheck to paycheck, meaning I can't invest or even plan for buying a house, starting a family, or any kind of travel.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
Apartment rents are really high, I have a family with me, so I live in a 2 bed apartment, and major portion of the salary just go in the apartment rent.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
We are not able to take second jobs to help pay other expenses like food, transportation, and electricity.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I saved aggressively what left after covering basic needs yet it worths less than 1 month emergency fund.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
We are not asking for luxury. We chose scholarship because we believed in something better. We accepted that this path would not make us rich. But we did not agree to be made poor. We teach your students. We run your labs. We conduct the research that brings prestige and grant funding to this institution — yet many of us are forced to stretch nine months of pay across twelve months of rent, food, bills, and medical costs.
Francis Guarascio
Graduate Student, Natural Resources
I had to replace my tires and bought the cheapest ones available because that was all I could afford. When one went flat within days, I had to buy new ones again — and because of that one expense, I couldn't afford groceries that month and had to ask my mom in India for help. If I made just a little more, a single pothole wouldn't cause a financial crisis.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I had to decide between spending the money I'd saved for my move on an AC unit for the heat wave, or waiting it out. I prioritized the move and didn't get the AC — and I've been struggling with insomnia for the past week, which has greatly affected my ability to work.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
Finding affordable housing is the biggest problem. I search long and hard for something in my price range, which means compromising on amenities that should be standard — parking, A/C, a dishwasher. Groceries and gas are their own source of stress with inflation where it is.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I regularly visit a discount store that sells expired food cheap. We shouldn't have to eat expired food because it's more affordable on our current salary.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I had to take out extensive loans to stay afloat, support two teenagers, and work a part-time job. We're expected to work around the clock — yet the same institution carefully respects faculty labor-contract restrictions over the summer.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
There is an immense amount of financial stress living at this wage. I take an hour-long bus from Montpelier to campus because that's what it takes to make ends meet.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
My rent is more than half my monthly stipend. I live paycheck to paycheck and have had to borrow money to cover utilities and car maintenance. I'm not receiving the level of compensation I'd expect for the expertise UVM requires of me.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I must have an outside job just to make ends meet. At this point in my life I should also be saving for retirement — but that isn't an option.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I'm the first in my family to graduate college and the first to go to graduate school. I can only afford living in Burlington because I'm married and my partner's paycheck makes it possible. Many other graduate students I know are in the same position — we are only able to afford living here through support from family members or spouses. Those without that support are just scraping by.
Sabrina Koetter
Graduate Student, Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources
Landlords require you to make 3× the rent, making it nearly impossible to find housing in an already scarce market. A living wage is just that — what we need to live so we can focus less on surviving and more on our work.
Ayana Curran-Howes
Graduate Student, Food Systems
I live paycheck to paycheck. The first one mostly goes to rent and utilities, but it doesn't even cover food for the whole month — it bleeds into the second.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I'm making enough to get by, but I'm not saving anything each month — if something happened that required a large amount of money, I'd be in real trouble.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
My full UVM paycheck goes toward rent and groceries, with nothing left for emergencies or savings.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I come from a country people often call "food insecure." In my experience, the most food insecurity I've ever felt is here in Burlington. Without the programs UVM runs to supplement food costs, affording basic groceries would have been next to impossible for someone like me.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
A very long commute, and counting pennies on literally any purchase — I'm also paying back a student loan that takes a third of my paycheck.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I took a 37% pay cut to start my PhD here because I was excited about the research. My rent in NYC was comparable to a one-bedroom in Burlington. I've delayed a $3,000 necessary dental surgery because I'm worried about totally removing my financial safety net. Not making a living wage makes it hard to keep convincing myself to stay in academia.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
Rent on my studio is $1,595 a month before utilities. After taxes, my car payment, and gas, I'm left with about $180 a month for food. None of this should be considered a luxury for a graduate student.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I can't afford plane tickets to visit family, so they can't really picture my life and never get to see me. I worry constantly about funds — for rent, food, even a new pair of pants. Managing my budget spreadsheet sometimes feels as complex as my PhD research.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I've lived with seven different roommates across three apartments as people moved or graduated. My one affordable, well-maintained place was in Jericho — but the commute down I-89 late at night in winter was costly and dangerous. I've never been able to secure stable housing on a graduate stipend.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
Everything — food, gas, housing, utilities — is so expensive that I've had to dip into the savings I built over six years before my PhD. I'm in my late 30s, and watching those savings drain makes me genuinely worried about retirement.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I'm a non-traditional Master's student, and I've experienced houselessness twice — the most recent time caused by UVM. When the university ended its lease with the affordable Saint Michael's dorms, my financial plans fell apart and I was houseless for roughly three weeks while studying for my oral comprehensive exam. My current apartment at Catamount Run costs more than my entire wage.
Franly Ulerio-Nunez
Master's Student, Animal & Veterinary Sciences
I have to take out loans to afford rent and am constantly struggling to keep up with bills.
Corey Forman
Graduate Student, Biology
Medical needs
Medical needs
Care delayed or paid for out of pocket because of the gap between the stipend and the bill — including billing errors, coverage gaps, and the day-to-day reality of SHIP.
I was using the graduate student gym when the bar came down on my face. In that split second I ran the coverage math: my eyes — no vision insurance. My mouth — no dental. Nose it is. The ER bill was $1,069.05. After insurance, $293.81. I applied for the UVM Emergency Grant to cover it — and I'm grateful it exists — but a grad student working full time needing an emergency grant for an injury in the graduate student gym is its own sentence.
Shahriar Tafti
PhD Student, Neuroscience Graduate Program
The medical follow-up my doctor recommended after the injury? I still haven't gone. Not because I don't want to. Because the math doesn't work.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I delayed getting checked for persistent fatigue and heart palpitations because I was scared of the cost. It turned out to be severe iron-deficiency anemia. No student should have to weigh the price of care against getting evaluated for symptoms affecting their daily life.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I had emergency surgery in the fall to remove my gallbladder. We've been trying to move out of Burlington to save money, but we can't cover the overlap between a security deposit and first month's rent.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
My partner and I are talking about starting a family. I paid over $500 out of pocket for one video appointment and one blood test -- which I was initially told would be covered.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I had a knee injury and the bill came to about $1,000 after insurance. It took me eight months to pay it off, plus a late fee I didn't see coming.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I needed emergency dental work last semester -- a cracked tooth that cost over $3,000. The only reason I could get it treated was that I'm covered by my spouse's insurance. I can't imagine how I would have handled it otherwise. Most of my colleagues don't have that option.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I called UVM Medical Center and my insurance for an MRI quote. They told me $28. Five months later I got a bill for $1,200. They admitted it was their mistake and gave me a 50% discount. I should not have had to fight for that.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
My insurance doesn't cover my migraine medication. Anyone who has migraines knows what that means.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
SHIP is the worst health coverage I've had across multiple jobs. I routinely fight to get claims covered. I push off lab work and specialist visits as long as I can. I worry about what happens if something serious comes up.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I have had serious health issues in my past and I am constantly worried if they come up again, SHIP will not be enough.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I have had months long issues with reimbursement and unprofessional handling of the situation by SHIP/Wellfleet in my one year of being at UVM.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
Anything health related is a luxury for me — dentist, eyecare, clinic check-ups.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I have chronic health issues that require me to pay out of pocket for certain healthcare.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I racked up thousands of dollars of debt at an intensive outpatient program recommended by my University psychiatrist for treatment of suicidality.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
Three out of five graduate students in my setting, including me, have experienced suicidal ideation — and faced substandard support from faculty and abysmal access to institutional resources. Does someone have to die before health standards improve? "It's supposed to be hard."
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I've gone into medical debt for required blood tests and dental work. I can't schedule follow-up care or treatments because I can't afford it.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I went to a non-UVM urgent care thinking it would be cheaper, and I was charged $200. No vision or dental coverage is absurd.
Sabrina Koetter
Graduate Student, Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources
I have chronic health problems, one of which can be debilitating. Not having a primary care relationship will make managing my health going forward more difficult.
Alejandro Ruiz
Research Assistant, Complex Systems and Data Science
I know I have major medical expenses coming for life-saving care — over $10,000, possibly $15,000 after insurance, even with my wife's insurance, which is better than what GSEs get. Right now I don't think I can afford this without going into extreme medical debt. A real raise would be life-changing for me.
Rain Younger
Graduate Research Assistant, Neuroscience
Only 10 days of PTO is not nearly enough to keep myself from extreme depression, and it's cut heavily into my work as a GRA. Having real time off would let me recharge in a way I desperately need.
Rain Younger
Graduate Research Assistant, Neuroscience
We pay about $5,000 a year out of pocket to cover my spouse on the UVM plan, locked into a full year with little flexibility. Managing all of this during a PhD is exhausting — and it makes having a family in Vermont hard to imagine.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
A basic ultrasound I had a referral for nearly bankrupted me for an entire semester — and it didn't even find the cause of the problem. I couldn't afford the follow-up tests. I had to get special approval for more coverage just to get the care I needed, and it expired within 12 months.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
My SHIP plan cut my physical therapy visits in half this year. Losing a provider who'd worked with me for over five years has meant lower functionality and more chronic pain — on top of the debt I've accumulated because I can't cover the co-insurance.
Alexandra Bakhareva
Graduate Student, Neuroscience Graduate Program
Dental & vision
Dental & vision
SHIP does not include dental or vision. These are what that exclusion costs in practice.
Without vision coverage I've paid over $2,600 a year for an exam, glasses, and contacts. That's half a month's stipend gone on something I can't skip.
Rei Jia
PhD candidate, Plant Biology
I keep postponing my dental appointment because it costs an entire month of my wage.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
No dental coverage. A single root canal cost me a fortune.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I've had to buy prescription glasses out of pocket and haven't had a routine dental cleaning in years. I know preventive care matters. I just can't afford it.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I have no dental or vision coverage. Those costs come entirely out of pocket.
Jayita Barua
Graduate Research Assistant, LCOM
I need my teeth examined. No dental insurance means no dentist will take me -- and I can't afford it anyway. Which is a real problem, because untreated dental infections can cause heart complications. We're not talking about cosmetic care.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I have had to skip the dentist for years at a time because I can't afford regular cleanings.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I can tell I'm due for a vision appointment, but I've had eye complications before, and I worry a visit for glasses will turn into a really expensive endeavor — so I keep putting it off.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I haven't been to the dentist in over four years. The only affordable option is the dental college — but a cleaning runs about three hours, with a second appointment to finish the other half of your mouth. That's six hours for one cleaning, time graduate students don't have.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
For me, the biggest achievable win would be to expand dental and vision coverage. It's insane that we don't get dental from the university.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I needed urgent dental work, but I delayed it until after I got married — just so I could be on my partner's dental insurance and avoid paying massive out-of-pocket costs.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
As someone with vision problems, in a state where vision care is this expensive, it's very difficult to support that on my own salary.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I'm 22 and had to pull a healthy tooth because UVM provides no dental coverage. An old root canal got infected — bad enough to invade my sinuses and erode bone — and the only option I could afford was extraction plus rounds of antibiotics. No dentist wanted to pull a tooth they could save, but that was the choice, and I still went into debt for it.
Alexandra Bakhareva
Graduate Student, Neuroscience Graduate Program
I lose my parents' insurance next month and will go without dental or vision. I just ordered two years' worth of contacts to cover myself, because I can't count on affording them later.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
Impact on research & teaching
Impact on research & teaching
Financial precarity doesn't stay in personal life. It shows up in lab work, classrooms, and morale.
Chronic pain and untreated conditions erode focus, stamina, and cognitive performance -- the very things that teaching and research demand.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
When prospective students walk past the graduate student food pantry on the third floor of Given, they see it. They know what it means. They do the math. And then they look at me.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
There's no oversight on time off, so I just stopped taking it if I can help it. I put in twice the hours around any break just to get a few days away.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
Financial pressure is a constant source of stress and distraction, making it harder to focus on research, teaching, and professional development. Increasing stipends would help ensure we can actually do the work we came here to do.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
Please consider how financial stress affects our ability to meet the demands of graduate work. If you want a productive university, provide your graduate students with a living wage.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
The biggest concern for prospective graduate students is affordability. Because the cost of living is so high, many of us have nothing left for savings of any kind — no savings for health emergencies, childcare, vet bills, or planning to buy a home. This is the system UVM is setting us up for, while at the same time needing us to teach more undergrads and conduct the research that grants the university R1 status.
Sabrina Koetter
Graduate Student, Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources
An increase to $40,000 won't give me extra spending money. It will give me 10 hours of my life back to focus on my studies and research, and to recharge so I can put my best foot forward.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
Working conditions
Working conditions
Workload expectations, safety at odd hours, and the consequences of doing the job as it actually needs to be done.
I run experiments that go until 1 or 2 in the morning. Because I can't afford to live near campus, I moved my car closer to the lab so I could walk safely back to it alone at night. I got over $430 in parking tickets for it. Now I'm told non-payment could lead to disenrollment. I am being penalized for protecting myself while doing my job.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I'm in active data collection and I've been told my TA hours will double next fall -- from 10 to 20 hours per week -- for the same stipend. If I don't accept it, I lose my funding.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
It is just tricky to navigate as different supervisors have different standards.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I have had my appointment threatened by my advisor for 'being too angry.' As a woman who was doing her best to assert a firm boundary, this created a power imbalance such that I have to tiptoe around him now.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
He has often talked about women as a whole group as being needy, manipulative, and vindictive. He talks about how he doesn't like to parent girls. He refuses to include me in lab culture, but not the male postdoc.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
With no minimum standards, any time I'm sick or have an appointment I feel I have to make up the work that same evening — which isn't good for your physical or mental health, and starts a downward spiral that ends in needing care we can't afford.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
The university's policy prohibiting transfer of credits earned more than 15 years ago is age discrimination, plain and simple. The credits were earned — the knowledge was mastered, the work was done. Higher education has long preferred younger students in part because they are easier to exploit: more financially dependent, less professionally established, less likely to push back.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I have migraines and anxiety that have made completing my work very difficult.
Ayana Curran-Howes
Graduate Student, Food Systems
I'm a PhD student getting paid for 20 hours a week while working more than 50 hours on average — research, coursework, lab inventory and safety duties, and informally mentoring undergrads in the lab.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I am not safe as a trans woman at UVM. I've been asked probing questions about my genitals, told that training my voice to sound more feminine made a coworker uncomfortable, and told someone didn't like that I changed my name. Every time I've watched someone go through the OEO, it's been clear their priority is limiting UVM's liability, not protecting the person who was harmed.
Rain Younger
Graduate Research Assistant, Neuroscience
For four years I've shared a windowless hallway office with seven other people. I have depression and asked to move to a room with a window — the response from CEMS leadership was dismissive and demeaning; they suggested I take Vitamin D instead. I've never felt so much like a worthless worker that nobody cares about.
Sourena Azidhak
PhD Candidate, Mechanical Engineering, CEMS
Having to hold a second job on top of all my work for UVM is extremely stressful. Between both jobs combined, I'm working well over full-time every single week.
Maitreya Suchocki
Graduate Student, Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources
When a migraine hits and the brain fog sets in, I can't trust my own discernment doing research — which matters when lives or data are on the line. I once pushed through anyway and then had to lie in my car's backseat for two hours because it wasn't safe to drive.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
When I had accidents and needed time off, I was practically demanded to take a "medical leave" — without being told it meant no funding, no insurance, and losing my medical providers. I had to fight tooth and nail to avoid it. Now, any time something goes wrong, I have to question whether I can afford to heal or whether I have to damage myself to keep progressing.
Jamie Carolyn Reulbach
Graduate Research Assistant, Neuroscience
I've been told bluntly by people with administrative power that when budgets are thin, those with disabilities are often the first to be cut. I'm told I'm welcome and wanted while being shown I'm only worth the physical work my body can do. The two-facedness is disgusting.
Jamie Carolyn Reulbach
Graduate Research Assistant, Neuroscience
Family & bereavement
Family & bereavement
What the stipend forces graduate workers to defer, accept, or forego — from childcare to funerals.
We're planning to start a family, and we're already rearranging our lives around it because childcare isn't something I can afford on this stipend.
Sam
Graduate Student, Natural Resources
We've been wanting to buy a house and settle in Vermont, but we've been shut out of the market -- and it has me questioning whether it even makes sense to stay.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
My grandmother is dying. When I had to book a last-minute flight to be with my family, flights were exceptionally expensive due to the conflict in the region. I had to choose between being there for her and financial stability. That is not a choice anyone should have to make.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I lost my grandfather. I chose not to go to the funeral. Because of the cost.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I lost a close friend unexpectedly last year and I didn't request for absence of leaves. I thought that I distracted myself with work instead of taking some time off to process my feelings properly. I ended up feeling exhausted both mentally and emotionally.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I have old parents living across the globe, and with the current events, travelling internationally is difficult if we don't get guaranteed a minimum.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
Grief should be processed at our own paces and not determined by the employers. However, having that minimum standards can alleviate the 'guilt' mentality that are injected to the workers.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
Some days when you are sick but still you have to go to job is really difficult, because I have to save the allotted leaves in my contract for that time when I visit my home.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I had to work through the two weeks I was in the outpatient program because there was no official way to take that time off.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I have a kid and it is really difficult to manage everything — currently I spend around $200 per month on child care.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
Not a parent but this would change my family planning.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
My partner and I want a family, but because of how low the stipend is and how few provisions I get, we've decided we have to wait until I finish my PhD and land a job. Real childcare support could change that math.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
My whole family and my partner's family have been discussing rearranging their lives and moving to Vermont to help with childcare when we need it — because we expect we won't be able to afford childcare on the graduate student salary.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
Any increase is better than none, but the proposed $40K is still not enough for a family of three, even with a working spouse. If I quit my outside job to focus on my degree, we would need assistance just to make ends meet.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I haven't started a family yet — but I'm nervous about it because of the current parental leave policy.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
My close relative passed away, and because there's no bereavement leave and I couldn't afford to fly back twice in one year, I could not attend the funeral. I can only afford to see my parents in India once every two years.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I have a poor immune system, so I get sick easily, which eats into our already-poor PTO. In 2024 I also lost a family member — with no bereavement leave, that meant being sick and having no PTO left for the entire year. I have repeatedly considered dropping out of my program and permanently leaving UVM. It's still something I'm strongly considering.
Rain Younger
Graduate Research Assistant, Neuroscience
I've never considered being a parent during my time here because of the poor pay, even though it's something I've wanted my whole life. My wife and I want to foster or adopt queer children and give them the safe homes they deserve — any additional funding to offset that cost could make it possible.
Rain Younger
Graduate Research Assistant, Neuroscience
International students
International students
Federal work-hour caps, higher tax rates, and systems that make compliance harder leave international graduate workers with even less margin.
I'm capped at 20 hours of paid work per week by law. I already work what amounts to a full-time job in the lab and the classroom -- those 20 hours are spoken for. There is no room, legally or practically, to earn a single additional dollar.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
My stipend is not a supplement. It is my only source of income, with no exceptions and no fallback. And international students are taxed at a higher rate than our domestic peers for our first five years.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I'm a trained tax preparer -- I volunteer through the VITA program. It is literally easier for me to file a 1040 by hand than to use Sprintax, the system international students are required to use. We are actively making their lives harder for no reason.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
With only 10 days, the time can realistically only be used for a trip home. For international students crossing continents, that barely leaves time to actually be there.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
Traveling home takes 36 hours each way. Under a 10-day policy, nearly half my time off is consumed by transit. Under a 5-day policy, a trip home is impossible without unpaid leave — and on a tight budget, unpaid days hit my ability to pay rent and groceries.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
Even in Catamount Run — marketed as "affordable housing" — a small studio plus parking runs nearly $2,000, swallowing over 83% of my $2,400 monthly take-home stipend. With under $400 left for the month I can't even afford winter tires to drive safely, and federal visa law caps my work hours, so I have no other income.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
I can only go home for 10 days, and it takes 4 days just to fly there and back. It's incredibly difficult to live away from home and not even get a full week with family — even after spending two whole paychecks just to fly back.
Anonymous
Graduate Student Employee
Stronger together.
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