These students are part of the Graduate Employees' Organization and teach one in four classes at the U of I. They're paid an average $13,000 a year, plus tuition. They just rejected a new contract because they say it doesn't protect tuition reimbursement, something one graduate assistant from Freeport says is unfair.
"If they decide to charge graduate students for tuition, it means they are treating graduate students into just another revenue source. It means they're making money off of us as well as everyone else. And we're already a cheap source of labor for this university."
The Graduate Employees' Organization heads back to the bargaining table Tuesday. It represents about 2500 graduate and teaching assistants.