All UK universities do this. Not necessarily a bad thing unlike how the article portrays it. PhD students (and depending on the institution, postdocs) in the UK get a stipend that has no mandated teaching hours. Teaching allows PhD students to earn some extra income within the university.

We certainly still have a compensation problem in academia. Bright STEM PhD grads don't want to earn £30-40k as a postdoc when earning £150k+ in big tech or finance isn't unusual. However, PhD students earning a little side income by marking lab reports or programming assessments isn't necessarily bad.

The article is talking about full-on lectureships, for example, this part-time role, initially advertised as full-time, according to the article:

>> One of Oxford’s top colleges, Christ Church, which had an income of £42.6m in 2022-23, is currently advertising a stipendiary lectureship in modern European history for £15,244 to £16,983.

For comparison, 15-16k was the range of my PhD stipend at Imperial College London between 2017-22 (I never got a clear answer what it was supposed to be exactly, from the admin, so I had to estimate it from my monthly pay, which fluctuated). It always stayed below minimum wage (so I didn't have to repay my undergard tuition fee loan). That's normal for PhD stipends, but it really shouldn't be for a lectureship.

I believe what you're thinking of is TA work: "marking lab reports or programming assessments". I did some of that, during my PhD. I don't remember the pay rate but it was less than minimum wage and the jobs were part-time and didn't last for more than a semester obviously. That kind of job is, indeed, ideal when you're looking for "a little side income", but a lectureship is supposed to be your main line job, not a side hustle.

When I was a postdoc in Cambridge, the problem was that there were too many PhD students and postdocs who wanted to teach. Not because of the compensation but for the experience. A lot of people wanted to try a career in the academia, and they needed teaching experience for that. But there were not enough undergraduates for them all to teach.

When I read the article when it came out, I was a bit annoyed that it singled out Oxford as it's the same at all the universities. It's also been that for a long time - I earned comparable amounts as a DPhil student and post-doc teaching at Oxford and another UK university. More recently I've worked as a tutor for The Open University and the pay for that has felt in a similar ballpark once you take into account all the marking and prep you need to do.

When I did it, I had my DPhil grant/post-doc salary and it felt like side money rather than being my 'job' and I was partly doing for the experience, for my CV (good to be able to put 'Lecturer at Oxford' on it!) and partly because I enjoyed it. I felt quite lucky to be offered tutoring jobs at Oxford as they were much sought-after by DPhil students.

I think it's also worth pointing out that not all Oxford colleges are 'rich' and many have buildings and grounds that are expensive to maintain. I don't think most of them are better placed to pay more than other UK universities.

There's an argument to be made that people teaching at universities should be paid more, but it does feel unfair to single out Oxford.

Living conditions are worse for non-FTEs in America where there isn't the NHS and housing is more expensive.

By contrast, Stanford's FTEs c. 2004 received such benefits as:

- Choices from 9 health insurance plans

- Vision, dental, mental healthcare, and long-term care

- Employer-matched retirement contribution 1:1 up to 5% of salary, plus free 4% of salary

- Access to then closed mutual funds like Fidelity Magellan

- Secret discounts like on luxury vehicles

- Credit union with 0% VISA debit foreign currency exchange rate

- 50% discount on tuition after being an FTE for 10 years

That has improved. Back in 1998 I was managing £8k a year (!) part time, which was really a full time job, while being told I was privileged to have such a position at a prestigious university. With little experience I didn't know any better.

Woke up one day, said fuck it, pissed off my doctoral advisor, a somewhat rotten old tenured professor by suggesting that it wasn't worth doing this any more. Looked around and picked up a job for £26k within a month. Never looked back.

Was about to say the same. Haven't PhD students usually done tutorials and supervised labs to undergraduates for the extra cash. Certainly was the case in my electronics undergrad course a few decades ago.

> in 2023-24 one in five tutorials (20%) were taught by hourly-paid tutors – typically PhD students or academics at the start of their career.

It is definitely a bad thing: as a postdoc you have to constantly uproot your life chasing the ever-elusive permanent contract so good luck rebuilding your social circle from scratch every five years. And God help you if you're married or (the horror!) want to have children.

It's also not good for the Universities, who are constantly losing institutional knowledge and having to retrain people from scratch. Did you offer a kickass course on Neural Networks last year? Well, too bad, the guy who offered it is now gone. But here's a fresh guy with a PhD in economics, and that's just as good.

As someone who got accepted into an Oxf'd DPhil program, did not get a stipend and had to decline the offer it certainly stings when you say "not necessarily a bad thing".

Because it definitely is a class barrier, and since my spot wasn't filled by someone else, also a lack in research output.

it's portrayed as a bad thing by the union because these phd students doing supervisions/tutorials aren't union members

it really is that simple

phd students love doing supervisions, they literally queue up around the block for the teaching experience and the tax free cash