Berkeley CS Rigs Hours to Dodge Tuition Remission
CS is so oversubscribed at Berkeley they had to hire undergrad TAs. Then they deliberately scheduled those TAs for fewer hours than the threshold that would make them eligible for tuition remission.
So the department needed the labor, got the labor, and then structured the arrangement specifically to avoid paying for it properly. Classic university move: extract the value, dodge the cost.
The number of computer science graduates at UC Berkeley is expected to decrease to 851 for the 2025-26 academic year, down from 1,029 graduates in 2024-25. As of late March, the CS department is slated to graduate approximately 350 students in 2027 https://www.dailycal.org/news/campus/academics/uc-berkeley-cs-major-enrollment-on-pace-to-drop-by-59-as-part-of-nationwide/article_8ceded3c-d939-4f60-8aa4-110be003c4e3.html
Berkeley CS quietly engineered undergrad TA schedules to stay just under the hours threshold for tuition remission eligibility, turning a staffing crisis into wage theft by design.
Source
x.com