Teaching Assistants, Postsecondary Salary

The median teaching assistants, postsecondary salary in the United States is $42,910 per year. Salaries range from $28,600 at the entry level to $76,420+ for the top 10% of earners. There are 164,090 teaching assistants, postsecondary jobs nationwide. Employment is projected to grow 3.1% through 2034.

Last updated: June 2026 Β· Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Median Salary
$42,910
per year
Employment
164,090
jobs in the U.S.

Salary Distribution

10th percentile
$28,600
25th percentile
$35,270
Median
$42,910
75th percentile
$60,510
90th percentile
$76,420

Job Growth (2024-2034)

+3.1%
As fast as average

Annual Openings

24,600
jobs/year (growth + replacements)

Education Required

Bachelor's degree

Teaching Assistants, Postsecondary Career Guide

Interview questions, resume templates, and a career ladder written specifically for teaching assistants, postsecondarys.

Postsecondary teaching assistants are primarily graduate students working alongside faculty at universities and community colleges β€” running discussion sections and recitations, grading exams and problem sets, holding office hours, staffing labs, and occasionally lecturing when the professor is unavailable. About 164,090 people work in this role, though the count understates true prevalence since many TAs are counted as students first. BLS median is $42,910 with the 10th percentile at $28,600 and the 90th at $76,420 β€” the wide range reflects the difference between community-college adjunct TAs (bottom decile) and unionized STEM PhD TAs at UAW-represented systems like UC (top decile after recent contract wins). Nearly all TA compensation includes some combination of stipend, tuition remission, and health benefits β€” the total package is often more valuable than the base stipend alone. Unionization (UAW at UC, UMich, Columbia; AFT at CUNY; independent at Harvard) is reshaping the compensation landscape rapidly.

Core Skills Hiring Managers Screen For

Subject-matter depth in the assigned course
You need to know the material 1-2 levels beyond what you're teaching β€” not just chapter 4, but why chapter 4 matters for chapter 12 and how it connects to the qualifying exam. Weak TAs teach the syllabus; strong TAs teach the concepts.
Pedagogy & active-learning techniques
Think-pair-share, cold-calling with dignity, worked examples, scaffolded problem sets. Every R1 university (Michigan CRLT, Wisconsin Delta, Stanford CTL, MIT TLL, Ohio State DELTA) runs a formal TA training program β€” the good ones show measurable improvement in student outcomes.
Grading calibration & fairness
Consistent rubrics, blind grading where possible, calibration norming with the professor and other TAs before the first exam. Unfair grading generates 90% of student complaints and undergrad course evaluations.
Discussion section & recitation facilitation
Manage a room of 15-30 undergrads for 50-80 minutes without lecturing at them the whole time. Ask open questions, tolerate silence, redirect off-topic tangents, protect quieter students from being talked over. Facilitation is a learned skill, not a talent.
Office hours & one-on-one instruction
Weekly 2-4 hours of open door for undergrads. Diagnose the actual conceptual gap (usually 2-3 steps upstream of where the student thinks the problem is), then teach that gap explicitly. Never do the problem for them.
Course platform fluency (Canvas, Blackboard, Moodle, Gradescope)
Every university runs one of these LMS platforms. Gradescope specifically is the industry standard for STEM grading β€” mastery cuts grading time roughly in half.
Academic integrity handling
Recognize plagiarism, AI-generated work, and collusion. Every university has a formal integrity process β€” you refer to the honor board, you don't adjudicate yourself. Turnitin, MOSS (for code), and now GPTZero / originality.ai are the tools.
Time management under thesis pressure
The core tension of the TA job: your students' problems feel urgent, but your dissertation is what determines your career. Firm office-hours boundaries, hard weekly caps on grading, and a written weekly research minimum are non-negotiable for TAs who finish their PhD on time.

How to Become a Teaching Assistants, Postsecondary

  1. 1
    Enter a graduate program at a university that funds via TAs
    STEM PhD programs at R1 universities almost always include TA-based funding β€” UC schools, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio State, Penn State, Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Columbia. Master's programs typically fund TAs only in specific fields (Math, Statistics, Economics). Community college TA positions are usually for enrolled students or recent graduates.
  2. 2
    Complete the department's required TA training
    1-3 days at most universities, plus a semester-long teaching seminar in some departments. Michigan CRLT and Stanford CTL run formal certificates; UC schools require the international-TA English proficiency check for non-native speakers.
  3. 3
    Start as an entry TA β€” grader, recitation leader, lab instructor
    $21k-$32k stipend + tuition remission + health benefits at most R1s. UAW-represented UC TAs earn $34-42k stipend post-2022 strike settlement. Nearly always includes summer coverage or a 9-month appointment structure.
  4. 4
    Advance to Head TA / Lead GSI / TA Coordinator
    $28k-$45k. Coordinate 4-12 TAs across sections of a large course (Intro CS at Michigan, Physics 7 at Berkeley, Chem 101 at Wisconsin), sign off on grading calibration, act as the professor's direct interface. Common in year 3-5 of a PhD.
  5. 5
    Transition to Lecturer / Postdoc / Assistant Professor (career fork)
    TA work is a bridge, not a destination. Post-PhD paths: tenure-track Assistant Professor ($75-135k at R1s), teaching-track Lecturer ($55-95k), postdoc researcher ($55-75k), or industry ($95-250k+ in STEM fields). Community college full-time faculty ($65-115k) is another path for candidates focused on teaching over research.

Career Progression

Entry TA / Grader / Recitation Leader
0-1 yrs$21k-$32k stipend + tuition remission + health (total package often $50k-$70k)
  • β€’Run 1-3 weekly discussion sections or recitations of 15-30 undergrads
  • β€’Grade weekly problem sets, quizzes, midterms, and finals
  • β€’Hold 2-4 hours of office hours per week
  • β€’Attend weekly TA meetings with the professor and other section TAs
Next: Section TA (fully independent) at year 2 with clean course evaluations.
Section TA / GSI (year 2-3)
1-3 yrs$25k-$38k stipend + full tuition remission + health (total package often $65k-$85k)
  • β€’Own a full section of 20-30 undergrads with substantial autonomy
  • β€’Design or adapt problem sets, section slides, and study guides
  • β€’Coordinate directly with professor on curriculum and grading calibration
  • β€’Handle academic integrity referrals through the honor board process
Next: Head TA / Lead GSI at year 3-4 or a full course design assignment.
Head TA / Lead GSI / TA Coordinator
3-5 yrs$28k-$45k stipend + full tuition + health + often a summer supplement (total package $75k-$100k)
  • β€’Coordinate 4-12 TAs across sections of a large enrollment course (300-1,200 undergrads)
  • β€’Own grading calibration, exam design support, and course logistics
  • β€’Direct interface with the professor; often ghost-lecture 1-3 times per term
  • β€’Mentor new TAs on section facilitation, office hours, and grading
Next: Instructor of Record for a summer or intro course at year 4-5.
Instructor of Record / Course Designer / Adjunct Lecturer
4-6 yrs$35k-$65k stipend or per-course pay (total package $75k-$110k depending on funding source)
  • β€’Serve as Instructor of Record for a summer or intro course β€” own the syllabus, exams, and grades
  • β€’Coordinate co-teaching with faculty on courses of your own design
  • β€’Adjunct teach at a community college or nearby university for supplemental income
  • β€’Build a teaching portfolio for the academic job market
Next: Post-degree: Assistant Professor, Lecturer, postdoc, or industry (career fork at PhD defense).
Post-PhD faculty / industry / teaching-track lecturer (career fork)
6+ (post-PhD) yrsTT Asst Prof $75-135k Β· Lecturer $55-95k Β· Postdoc $55-75k Β· Industry $95-250k+ (STEM PhD)
  • β€’Tenure-track Assistant Professor at R1: research 60%, teaching 30%, service 10%
  • β€’Teaching-track Lecturer (Michigan LEO, UC Lecturer, community college full-time): teaching 80%, service 20%
  • β€’Postdoc researcher: research 100% for 2-4 years pre-TT market
  • β€’Industry: STEM PhDs command $95k-$250k+ starting depending on field (CS, ML, quant finance top tier)
Next: Tenure, promotion to Associate Professor, promotion to Sr Lecturer, or industry Sr / Staff / Principal.

Interview Questions & Answers

5 free questions below. Career Kit unlocks 17 total plus resume bullets for every level.

Q1. How would you handle a discussion section where nobody's participating?situational
Silence in a discussion section is almost always about environment, not about the students being unprepared. Concrete moves: think-pair-share (60 seconds solo, 2 minutes paired, then share out β€” nobody has to speak first alone); randomized cold call after the pair phase (they've had time to think, so cold-calling is much less threatening); explicitly protect the risk of being wrong ('the wrong answer that shows me your reasoning is more useful to me than the right answer with no reasoning'). Never fill the silence yourself in the first 10 seconds β€” new TAs jump in too fast and train students that silence is temporary. At the Michigan CRLT TA training, they teach a 7-second silence rule after a question β€” most students crack and answer if you hold it. Interviewers value candidates who can name a specific pedagogical move, not vague 'I'd try to engage them.'
Q2. Walk me through how you'd grade a stack of 60 problem sets by end of week.technical
Calibrate first. Before grading anything, I sit with the professor and 1-2 other TAs and grade 5 sample papers together β€” establish partial-credit rules for the specific problems on this set (typically 30 minutes for a 5-problem PSet). Then I grade problem-by-problem across all papers, not paper-by-paper (grading problem 1 across all 60 first, then problem 2, etc.) β€” this eliminates fatigue drift and makes rubric application consistent. Gradescope makes this workflow the default; on paper it takes deliberate discipline. I keep a running rubric addendum for any partial-credit case that comes up mid-grading and share it back to the other TAs so we stay calibrated. Target: 5-8 minutes per paper for a 5-problem STEM PSet, 15-20 minutes for a humanities response essay. At a large university where I graded 200-300 papers per week, this cadence held my error rate below 2% on student regrading requests.
Q3. Tell me about a time you handled a difficult student interaction.behavioral
STAR. Situation: at Berkeley, I had a student who cornered me after every lecture, then emailed 4-6 times per week, then started showing up at unscheduled office hours demanding grade review. Task: set boundaries without shutting the student down academically. Action: I moved all our interactions to scheduled 15-minute office hour slots (not walk-in), replied to emails once per business day rather than continuously, and had a direct 20-minute conversation naming the pattern and its impact. I also flagged the pattern to my faculty advisor because it was escalating past normal TA-student interaction. Result: the student re-engaged normally after two weeks, passed the course, and later thanked me for the boundary. I also learned to set the boundaries proactively at the start of the next semester in my TA welcome email. Interviewers value candidates who can name the boundary and the escalation without demonizing the student.
Q4. How do you catch and handle academic integrity violations?technical
Prevention first. On the syllabus and in the first section, name the specific rules (collaboration allowed on X, not on Y, always cite sources, AI use policy per this course). Second, structure assignments to make cheating harder β€” problem sets with unique numerical parameters per student in STEM; response prompts tied to in-class discussion in humanities. Third, use the tools your institution provides β€” Turnitin for text, MOSS (Measure Of Software Similarity) for code, GPTZero or originality.ai for AI content. Fourth, if you find a violation, do not adjudicate it yourself β€” file the honor board referral with the evidence (side-by-side comparison, similarity report, timestamp). At every university I know of, TAs who try to handle integrity cases informally get burned when the case becomes formal. Interviewers screen for candidates who know the process is not vigilante justice β€” it's a due-process referral.
Q5. Why TAing while doing your PhD, and where do you want to end up?closer
The honest answer that resonates: teaching is core to what an academic career actually is, and the earlier you get real classroom experience, the better positioned you are for the academic job market or for industry roles that value communication. Say something specific β€” 'I'm targeting a tenure-track position in [field], and Michigan / Wisconsin / UC schools weight teaching evidence heavily in their hiring; my two years as GSI plus a lead-TA year for Intro CS gives me a teaching portfolio I can build a job talk around.' If you're targeting industry, say β€” 'I'm targeting industry ML research; the ability to explain complex work to non-experts is a top-3 hiring signal at Google Research, DeepMind, and Anthropic, and TAing is the fastest way to build that.' Vague 'I like teaching' answers filter out; specific career-target answers move you up. Interviewers value candidates who can name the fork and the credential path.

Resume Template β€” Entry TA / Grader (0-1 yrs)

Copy these bullets into your resume as a starting point. Career Kit includes bullets for every level of the ladder.

Entry TA / Grader (0-1 yrs)
  • β–ΈGraduate Student Instructor for Intro CS (CS 61A) at UC Berkeley; ran 2 weekly discussion sections of 28 undergrads each.
  • β–ΈGraded 180-220 problem sets per week using Gradescope with <2% regrade-request rate against a course average of 6%.
  • β–ΈHeld 4 hours of weekly office hours; NPS-equivalent instructor rating 4.7/5.0 on end-of-term student evaluations.
  • β–Έ$34,800 stipend + full tuition remission + health benefits + $2,400 summer fellowship (UAW 2865 contract).

What Gets You Rejected

  • βœ—Weak subject-matter depth β€” a TA who cannot answer 'why does this method work' beyond the textbook loses student trust fast.
  • βœ—Course evaluations consistently below the departmental median β€” a two-semester pattern is a career signal that stays with you at the academic job market.
  • βœ—No formal TA training completed β€” CRLT, CTL, DELTA certificates are increasingly expected on academic job applications.
  • βœ—Handled academic integrity informally instead of referring to the honor board β€” this gets TAs pulled from teaching duties at most universities.
  • βœ—Cannot describe a specific pedagogical technique (think-pair-share, worked examples, scaffolded problem sets) β€” signals a lecturer, not a facilitator.

Salary Negotiation Levers

  • βœ“Union contract minimums β€” UAW 2865 (UC), GEO (Michigan), TAA (Wisconsin), GSOC (NYU), SEIU 200 (Columbia) all set stipend floors. The 2022-2023 UC strike raised UC TA stipends by roughly 45% over 3 years. Know your contract's minimum for your step.
  • βœ“Tuition remission β€” always confirm this is separate from the stipend and included in the total package. Full tuition remission at a private R1 (Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Columbia) is worth $58k-$72k in itself.
  • βœ“Health benefits β€” comprehensive health, dental, vision for the TA and dependents at most R1s. Confirm dependent coverage if you have a partner or children.
  • βœ“Summer coverage β€” 9-month TA appointments leave June-August unfunded. Negotiate a summer fellowship, RA position, or independent research grant early.
  • βœ“Housing stipend or subsidized housing β€” Bay Area, NYC, Boston, DC PhDs increasingly negotiate housing supplements. UC's 2022 contract added a housing allowance. Columbia and NYU offer subsidized housing.
  • βœ“Fee remission β€” some universities charge PhD students separate fees ($1-4k/year) not covered by tuition remission. Confirm fee remission is included.
  • βœ“Grader-only vs. discussion-leading appointments β€” grader appointments are typically 10 hours/week; discussion-leading is 20 hours/week. Negotiate for the appointment type that best supports your research.
  • βœ“Advancement to Lead GSI / Head TA β€” 5-15% stipend lift plus resume signal for the academic job market.

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Teaching Assistants, Postsecondary Salary by State

Best Cities (cost-adjusted) β†’

Salary Map β€” Click a state for details

$23K
$58Kβ–  No data

Top Paying States

Maryland
$58K
+36%
Massachusetts
$56K
+31%
Texas
$56K
+30%
New Jersey
$54K
+26%
Minnesota
$53K
+24%
Utah
$52K
+22%
Washington
$50K
+18%
North Carolina
$50K
+17%
North Dakota
$50K
+16%
Oklahoma
$50K
+16%
Vertical line = national median. Click a state for full details.
StateMedianvs. National
Maryland$58,330+35.9%
Massachusetts$56,370+31.4%
Texas$55,670+29.7%
New Jersey$54,260+26.5%
Minnesota$53,380+24.4%
Utah$52,300+21.9%
Washington$50,460+17.6%
North Carolina$50,050+16.6%
North Dakota$49,960+16.4%
Oklahoma$49,920+16.3%
1–10 of 45

Teaching Assistants, Postsecondary Salary by Metro Area

Metro AreaMedianvs. National
Canton-Massillon, OH$78,510+83.0%
Bridgeport-Stamford-Danbury, CT$68,230+59.0%
Syracuse, NY$65,670+53.0%
Lubbock, TX$64,160+49.5%
Merced, CA$63,220+47.3%
Sacramento-Roseville-Folsom, CA$61,780+44.0%
Flagstaff, AZ$61,730+43.9%
Buffalo-Cheektowaga, NY$61,540+43.4%
Duluth, MN-WI$60,470+40.9%
Amherst Town-Northampton, MA$60,210+40.3%
1–10 of 142
Data Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS). Data reflects the most recent annual survey.
How does this compare to pro athletes?
A teaching assistants, postsecondary earning $42,910/year would need 1389 years to match Stephen Curry's NBA salary, or 1491 yearsto match Patrick Mahomes' NFL contract.
See all sports & celebrity salaries β†’
πŸ“ˆ See how teaching assistants, postsecondary salaries have changed over the past decade.
View Teaching Assistants, Postsecondary salary trend (2011–2024) β†’