Tyler Cowen, Columnist

Keep Unions Out of Grad School

Universities and graduate students do not have a typical employer-employee relationship.

Not a place for grad students to unionize.

Photographer: Scott Olson/Getty Images North America
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The latest dispute in higher education, highlighted by a recent three-day walkout at the University of Chicago, is whether graduate students in private universities should be allowed to unionize. A federal government ruling made this possible in 2016, but that policy may soon be reversed.

As a faculty member, I believe unionization would be a mistake, most of all in the longer run.1