How can I (29F) talk to my boss (40sF) who I thought was a friend about how I feel that she has hurt my career and treated me badly?

Edit: thank you all so much for your advice, I really needed the perspective and to realize top priority needs to be just leaving ASAP and not worrying about talking it out. I realize that while I thought we were friendly enough to discuss things, I was probably too used to mentorship-type relationships and shared too much of my plans with her. Lesson very much learned.

I actually really like my boss (40sF) as a person. She's generally a straight-shooter, was (until recently) easy to talk to, and I think ultimately that she is a nice/good person and is good at her job. We used to be friends, not "hang out after work" friendly, but we had several coffee chats and supported each other through the pandemic. TLDR at bottom.

I work for a university, in a job that requires a Master's degree but that doesn't pay well. Our work is emotionally draining and has a ton of turnover, but the benefits are the selling point. When I got the job, a major draw was that through our benefits we were able to take courses and even go to graduate school (up to 3 classes per semester) for "free" except fees (!!!). My boss herself worked on a PhD while working the job I currently have.
I got the job in Fall 2019, and worked through the pandemic up until now. I am essentially a counselor. I manage a caseload that doubled in size over 2020 (hundreds of students), and the emotional toll of everyone's collective breakdown (including mine) was enough that I realized I absolutely didn't want my current career. I applied to several graduate programs, including one through my university, and was accepted to many of them (but this is the education field in the US, so nothing is well-funded). I let my boss know I when I started being accepted to graduate programs, and she was happy for me. I also told her I was waiting to hear back from our university, as it is a good school and financially made the most sense since I could take classes through work essentially for free and could continue in my current position until I finished.
The University I work for was one of the last schools to get back to me (after many acceptance deadlines passed/I had to decline a few offers), but I was accepted. I talked to my boss about it and she asked if I would want to "continue full-time". I told her no (which I had said before), and let her know I'd want to lighten my workload while I take classes, since the cases had gotten pretty out of control and several colleagues already do so. She said no, they would not keep me employed at less hours, and after a lot of struggle (which I talked to her about) I decided to go to a better (but more expensive) school out of state that I would need to save up for. I declined my current university, accepted the other school but deferred a year, and continued working my current job full time to save up more money. About a month later one of our coworkers who started at the same time as me quit to move with her husband out of state, but a couple of weeks later she was back, working part time and fully remote because we "needed the people". I was pretty upset about this, since they denied my request to lessen my hours while attending school. My boss never talked to me about it, and when I tried to ask about it she simply said 'things had changed'.

Around the same time we all received emails telling us we were getting "merit raises". This led to a conversation among myself and my colleagues in which I found outv that after the raises I made less than all of them (between $3000-10,000 less annually), and that while everyone got raises, the amount was different depending on the supervisor's recommendation (aka my boss). My raise was smaller than all of theirs, so even people who had started with me on the same pay grade were now making more. This really upset me. I've always had excellent annual performance reviews, I treat my students well, and the departments I work with have said very complimentary things to and about me as far as I know. No one ever gave me any reason to believe that I was doing anything other than a stellar job.

I tried to talk to my boss about this and she completely brushed me off and told me pay raises were based on a formula they use and that not everyone could get as large of a raise, but that I might get a bigger one if there was another round of merit raises (which I likely won't be around for, as she knows).

I know she has been put under a lot of additional stress with several colleagues quitting and that she's overwhelmed. The final straw was when I had a scary "incident" about a month ago with a student. We have to report any incidents of aggression from students to our bosses, and this one was the first since we returned to in-person, so I was pretty shaken and upset. When I told her about it she was extremely dismissive. She didn't follow the protocol I had seen her go through previously with more minor incidents, and didn't ask if I was okay or even really respond to my emails after that for a few days except to tell me to take the day off if I needed it when I told her I was shaken up by what happened. She has only recently started to get back to me when I reach out. My colleagues tell me she has been normal with them, and has resumed her regular 'check-in' meetings. I heard almost nothing from her for weeks.
I am totally cool with her not being "friendly" with me, as long as she treats me as well as she treats others. I know I'm not getting a lot of respect in my job, and I am looking for a way out. I've been applying/looking for something else, but it's a process. I know at the very least that I have a 'hard out' for graduate school after this year.

I feel like I need to talk to my boss about how much these events have made me feel devalued and have essentially made me decide to quit, but I want to do it in a way that's constructive. Is there any way that I can do this?

TLDR: My boss and I were close through the pandemic, but when things went back to 'normal' she wouldn't allow me to reduce hours while letting other staff members do so, gave me a lower raise than my coworkers, and brushed me off after a scary incident that had a required safety protocol. How can I talk to her about these issues and let her know this isn't okay?

Submitted November 02, 2021 at 04:34PM by CeratotheriumSimum https://ift.tt/3waY4JG