Morgan Amick’s grocery bill is over $150 each month, even while living mostly on rice and the cheapest meat she can find.

Speaking to a room with dozens of graduate students, pizza boxes and aUniversity of South Florida bargaining team, Amick also said she spends $30 every week on gas, some of which is used to drive to bargaining sessions like this one.

She is a graduate researcher and chief negotiator for University of South Florida Graduate Assistants United, and one of many graduate students at USF who have been waiting since July for the university to respond to the union’s stipend proposal.

The university’s long-awaited counteroffer, which they discussed on Tuesday at the Tampa campus, won’t meaningfully help her pay for those living expenses, she said. Michael Mattimore, the university’s chief negotiator, said the university came to the bargaining table constrained by finances.

The graduate student union and the university began this bargaining cycle, which occurs roughly every three years, in April. Tessa Barber, the union president, said they’ve agreed to every article in their contract except those related to finances and another aimed at supporting international graduate students.

The union made their stipend proposal in July, which asked for minimum values about 7% above the median at other Association of American Universities colleges. The union proposed around $30,000 for doctorate graduate assistants and around $22,000 for master’s graduate assistants.

“USF recently joined the AAU, and they’ve been very vocal about their commitment to advancing in the ranks of an AAU university,” Barber said. “We can’t be a competitive university if we don’t pay our (graduate assistants) a competitive salary.”

Right now, most doctoral graduate assistants at USF make about $22,000. Most masters’ graduate assistants make around $15,000, which falls below the federal poverty line. Barber said the minimum stipends, which more than80% of graduate assistants make, are unsustainable. Many graduate assistants live paycheck to paycheck and have second or third jobs, she said.

USF wanted to wait to give the union a response until they completed a university-wide efficiency audit, Barber said. She said the audit was done in September, but USF has not been ready to provide a proposal until this week.

USF’s negotiating team, which represents the university’s trustees, offered a 2% increase to annual stipends, which equates to an additional $306 for masters’ graduate assistants and $432 for doctoral graduate assistants per year.

Steve Tauber, a political science professor and vice provost for faculty administration, said it was not easy to get the money for their counterproposal. The 2% raise would cost the university around $765,000, he said.

Barber said the university’s offer is an “insult and a disservice,” considering USF’s increasing enrollment, research funding and donations. A 2% raise keeps master’s graduate assistants below the poverty line and would account for a decrease in purchasing power due to inflation, she said. Continual low stipend costs are becoming prohibitive to being a graduate student at USF, Amick said.

“We were not expecting them to give us what we asked for,” she said. “But we were not expecting this.”

The union countered with an ask for about $19,000 for masters’ graduate assistants and about $26,500 for doctoral graduate assistants. That’s the median Association of American Universities stipend minus 10%.

Mattimore said the negotiating team is not currently authorized to offer a larger number. Their team will meet with the trustees about the union’s counteroffer before the next bargaining session.