IN DECEMBER, both the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Student Council and the University-wide Student Council unanimously passed a resolution calling for the University to provide health insurance to its graduate student teaching assistants, research assistants and fellowship recipients. We now call on the wider University community to urge the administration to act decisively and swiftly to bring about the provision of health insurance to these students. The unanimity of both the councils on this issue, we hope, will clearly demonstrate the high priority assigned to it by undergraduate and graduate students alike.
By way of background, we note that the University requires all its students to have health insurance as a condition for enrollment. This is a sensible policy since health insurance is clearly essential not only to the quality of life of individual students, but also to the collective health of the student body. Unlike the vast majority of undergraduates, however, graduate students are not eligible for coverage under their parents' insurance plans. The cost of obtaining health insurance is a significant and ever-increasing financial burden on graduate students: The cost of the least expensive health insurance policy offered to an individual student by QualChoice was $774 for the 2000-2001 academic year and is expected to rise dramatically for the coming year. This burden is further exacerbated by grad students' limited financial means: The average annual support paid to University students in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences was approximately $5000 in FY 1997, and the aforementioned $774 minimal health insurance policy thereby represents over 15 percent of a graduate student's yearly income.
Despite this burden and U.Va.'s recognition of the importance of health insurance, however, the University has not yet followed the lead of many of its peer institutions in providing health insurance to our grad students. In the past, one argument against providing such insurance was that administrators were unclear how much of a priority it was to grad students. There should no longer be any ambiguity on this point. In a recent survey of all graduate students conducted by this author, University grad students overwhelmingly ranked University-subsidized health insurance benefits as their no. 1 priority, even in preference to an across-the-board stipend or pay increase. The lack of university-provided health insurance for graduate students at the University has a tremendous negative impact on the quality of life of graduate students here. We are convinced that providing insurance for these students, as the University does for so many of the others who work on its behalf, is a matter of fundamental fairness.
We also believe that the provision of health insurance (or alternatively, its continued absence) will have a significant impact on the University's ability to attract and retain graduate students of the highest caliber. Most of the University's peer institutions - public as well as private - already provide health insurance coverage for their grad students. The California Institute of Technology, Harvard University, North Carolina State University, Pennsylvania State University, Princeton University, Purdue University, Syracuse University, Vanderbilt University, Washington University in St. Louis, Yale University, the University of California System, and the Universities of Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin all provide full or partial health insurance coverage to their Arts and Sciences graduate students.
Two University departments, Astronomy and Physics, recently decided to utilize their own funds to provide graduate students with health insurance, because they realized that they were unable to compete in the recruitment of the best students without it. The many competing demands on departmental budgets and the limited resources available at the departmental level, however, make it unlikely that other departments will be able to insure students on their own (or that these two departments will be able to continue doing so in the future).
Dean Stephen E. Plog reflected on efforts to increase funding for the University's graduate programs: "We felt that our level of financial support had fallen below the level of other top graduate schools. We were trying to find additional ways to attract the very best graduate students. By providing health insurance to graduate students, the University of Virginia will help to ensure that it becomes an even more attractive place for top graduate students to study." The Faculty Senate has also recently spoken out on the importance of, and in favor of, providing health insurance benefits to graduate students.
The University clearly recognizes the essential nature of health insurance, since it requires that all students who enroll at the University acquire basic coverage. We ask that the University go a step further, and recognize its obligation to provide such insurance to those graduate students who labor on the University's behalf as teachers and researchers, and who are an essential part of our success as an institution. We therefore urge the University administration to work diligently and rapidly towards providing such health insurance coverage for graduate students, thereby ensuring the continued excellence of the University's graduate programs, its undergraduate education, and the University's academic community as a whole.
(Patrick J. McGuinn is a graduate student of government and foreign affairs. He is Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Student Council president. Joe Bilby is a fourth year College student. He is Student Council president.)
Read More
PARTING SHOT: Does this even matter?
By Jacob Tisdale | 12 hours agoIndividuals and communities can use sports to inspire, to hold space, to heal, to break molds, to change narratives, to honor faith or to come home.
PARTING SHOT: Sometimes it’s okay to fake a smile
By Alexandra Holmes | YesterdayI surrounded myself with people who were so enthusiastic about the University and its potential, that after a while, it was impossible not to feel their passion and their convictions rub off on me.
PARTING SHOT: Girl, what did you expect?
By Cecy Juárez | 2 days agoAdvocate for yourself unabashedly, even and especially when you feel like you don’t belong.
