https://www.theregister.co.uk/AMP/2020/01/15/uc_berkeley_student_compensation/
This could have significant implications on CS admissions in the near future. CS classes could have significantly lower headcounts if the school doesn’t come up with this extra funding. One way of a achieving this is to significantly increase the minimum GPA from its current 3.30+ There is speculation that it could be 3.70 or 3.80 for CS-intent students.
The existence of a cliff in benefit eligibility (in this case a tuition waiver and health care benefits) at a certain threshold of part time work (in this case, 25%, or 10 hours per week) created the not surprising incentive to hire part time employees to hours just below the cliff.
My EECS son will be a TA winter semester. Wonder how this is going to affect him.
Nice little summary: https://www.alexirpan.com/2020/01/16/berkeley-back-pay.html
So 8 hour/week EECS TA positions will go away.
More 20 hour/week or even 30 hour/week undergrad TA positions. Maybe 24 hour/week positions.
And yes, less capacity in EECS classes.
Though probably not a drastic decrease. Though the GPA cutoff to get in seems likely to go up. 3.7 is possible. 3.7 or so was the cutoff to transfer in to UIUC CS. Now even that GPA can’t guarantee you a successful transfer in to UIUC CS. The advice to kids who definitely want CS but did not get in to UIUC for CS/CS+X for several years now has been to go elsewhere.
You would think that when unions were negotiating pay and benefit related matters, they would avoid having hour cliffs in benefit eligibility to avoid creating the incentive to hire part time employees just below the hour cliffs.
Then they also have to consider that full benefits at a relatively low part time level (10 hours per week) will incentivize the employer to try to hire each part time employee to the highest number of hours possible, because full benefits add more per hour to the cost of a 10 hour per week employee than they do to a 30 hour per week employee.
@ucbalumnus, I think it’s safe to assume that the world is not overflowing with wise and rational people who always care about everything and think everything through.