Graduate students will soon be eligible to receive subsidized health benefits that can continue for up to a year and a half after they graduate, following a GSG decision to join a national nonprofit advocacy and resource organization.
The Graduate Student Government voted to join the National Association of Graduate-Professional Students at its Friday meeting and will cover the annual $500 membership cost using student fees.
The GSG’s membership and the resulting benefits are effective immediately, which GSG officials said should help resolve graduate students’ healthcare concerns.
“The biggest selling point for us was the health insurance at a discounted rate,” GSG President-elect Anna Bedford said. “As they graduate, most students don’t have health insurance immediately.”
The organization’s Student Injury and Sickness Insurance Plan costs $49 a month for international students and $120 for most others. Graduate students could already get access to these rates on their own by becoming individual NAGPS members for $50 a year; the GSG vote gives similar benefits with the student fees they already pay.
The plan covers maternity costs and access to a large nationwide panel of physicians.
The GSG’s NAGPS membership also offers students discounted car rentals, GEICO auto insurance and The Chronicle of Higher Education subscriptions.
The GSG was a NAGPS member from 2000 to 2003, Bedford said. Neither she nor other GSG officials were sure why the GSG had halted its membership, and no one was opposed to the idea of joining again. The organization came to the university recently to ask the GSG to renew its membership.
One student did question the need to subscribe so quickly.
“Do people think it’s worth it to start now?” asked Jacqueline Orlando, an assembly member from the arts and humanities college, saying the program might not spread quickly enough for it to be as cost-effective as waiting until next semester. It will cost $250 to join just through October before switching to the $500 annual fee.
GSG President Anupama Kothari said she alone has received about 10 e-mails from graduate students complaining about health insurance, and healthcare shouldn’t wait another semester.
GSGs at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and several Ivy League universities are among the nearly four dozen NAGPS members nationwide.
“One of the things we have to do — and hopefully immediately — for the people graduating this spring is advertising so that they can have access to the benefits,” Bedford said.
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