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PLATFORM / TIMELINE All graduate students should have guaranteed funding, even in the summers or in the event that their advisor should lose funding: • 12-month living wage (including waived or paid tuition) for all doctoral students (PhD and DFA) • Guaranteed funding and tuition waivers for students who want to work on projects that their advisors cannot support using grant money • Loan forgiveness policy for educational loans for graduate and professional students who go into low-paid jobs post-graduation • Increased financial aid for professional school students History: Academic Year 1998-99 The Graduate School implements a long-awaited policy of granting a "full" 9-month stipend and tuition waiver to all incoming PhD students. The level of the "full" 9-month stipend is around $11,500. October 1999 GESO calls on the university to provide summer funding or to pay a 12-month living wage so that all graduate students are able to make continuous progress on their academic work. January 2001 The administration announces two stipend increases: $2,220 for Humanities and Social Sciences students (from $11,500 to $13,700) and $2,000 for Biological Sciences students, but fails to increase teaching pay to keep up with stipend amounts. This effectively creates a wage gap between teachers teaching during their “stipend years” and those teaching in their upper years. This gap has grown with each announcement of a stipend increase.