After months of protests, graduate assistants have won: Academic fees will now be deducted from their UF paychecks instead of being due before checks are distributed.
Graduate assistants, like all UF students, must pay fees every semester based on the number of credit hours they are taking.
A new policy, approved Tuesday by graduate school administrators, will go into effect in January. However, students who can't pay the fee on time in the fall can expect a more relaxed appeal process, said Cecilia Amador, Graduate Student Council vice president.
Ken Gerhardt, interim dean of UF's graduate school, met with representatives of the council and Graduate Assistants United, a graduate student labor union representing about 4,200 paid teaching and research assistants at UF.
Gerhardt could not be reached for comment.
For the union, the payroll deduction is reason for celebration after months of contesting UF's old methods of collection.
On Halloween last year, members gathered outside of Tigert Hall in costumes and distributed surveys to graduate students.
One question asked if students had to delay paying other household bills in order to pay UF's fees.
Of the 803 graduate assistants who answered, 560 responded "yes," said Bret Seferian, the union's co-president.
The union protested again outside Criser Hall on Jan. 18, the day all students' fees were due for the spring semester.
They paid their fees in $1 bills to demonstrate how much money they give to UF, and an on-campus bank had to stop distributing $1 bills, Seferian said.
He said the protests prompted UF administrators to take action.
The union plans to celebrate the new payment plan with food and drinks on the Tigert Hall lawn on Wednesday afternoon.
But the payroll deduction is only the first step of many that UF needs to take toward eliminating the fees altogether, Seferian said. In addition to celebrating, members will fling "No More Fees" Frisbee discs and discuss ways to negotiate with administrators.
"It's a big show of 'hey, we're here and we're still working on the fees,'" Seferian said.
