UCSC Budget Cuts to Affect Graduate Student Health Care Coverage

For Immediate Release
May 9th, 2009

UCSC Budget Cuts to Affect Graduate Student Heath Care Coverage

UCSC is seeking to meet budget deficits by cutting health care coverage and benefits to its graduate students, including those with families and dependents. Last week Lisa Sloan, Dean of Graduate Studies and Professor of Earth Sciences, asked the Graduate Student Association to approve cuts to current levels of coverage for the Graduate Student Health Insurance Plan (GSHIP). These cuts could increase the cost of co-pays for doctor visits and emergency care, decrease life-time coverage limits and probably, and most significantly, increase co-pays for prescription drugs, even those taken on a regular basis for chronic conditions.

Nellie Chu, graduate student in the Department of Anthropology and member of the Protect GSHIP Committee, underwent surgery last year to remove a 10cm tumor from her adrenal gland. Chu says, “GSHIP provided me with the affordable health care I needed to save my life.” With these cuts to GSHIP, however, Chu worries that access to healthcare will be out of reach for graduate students with serious illnesses such as hers. “We simply cannot afford to pay more for healthcare on our small salaries as Teaching Assistants,” Chu says.

The effect will also likely be an increase in out of pocket expenses for prescriptions. Psychology graduate student Jessy Lancaster, who already pays nearly a hundred dollars per month for allergy-related prescriptions, says, “based on the proposed increase of prescription costs, I will be paying an additional several hundred dollars a year for medications. If the UC wants to attract and retain graduate students, we shouldn’t have to take out hundreds of dollars of additional student loans every year just to stay healthy.”

These increases, in conjunction with significant rent increases for graduate students living in Family Student Housing, cuts to graduate student funding, lay-offs of lecturers and non-tenured instructors, the attempt to shut down the renowned Community Studies Department, and increase tuition costs across the board marks a concerted effort on the part of the UCSC administration to transfer an undue portion of the University's budgetary shortfall to groups of students who are least able to bear an increased financial burden.

UCSC has demonstrated a long-standing commitment to fighting economic inequities and promoting social justice issues such as diversity and community. However, UCSC's recent attempts to extract concessions from its most vulnerable populations are in direct contradiction with the spirit of these values. Graduate students are stretched far too thin to be asked to make concessions to our already very modest levels of compensation. We strongly call for the university to rethink how it will deal with its budgetary shortfall in a fair and equitable manner.

The economic crisis has made life more difficult for nearly everyone, and we surely recognize that our standards of living will be changing. But the financial situation of graduate students and their families is already, in many cases, quite difficult. Our personal budgets simply cannot continue to absorb these kinds of cost increases. UCSC administration has placed a May 15 deadline for graduate students to decide for ourselves how to increase our out of pocket healthcare expenses. This puts us in the very real situation of choosing whether to limit our medications for chronic illness, or health care for our children, or regular check-ups. They are requiring that we choose how to limit our access to health care.

If a decision has not been made by graduate students, the UCSC administration will take it upon itself to cut benefits without the consultation and consent of the people directly affected. We are making a stand. Graduate students who do an immense amount of teaching labor for the University, and are paid approximately $15,000 for nine months of work as a Teaching Assistant (many graduate students go jobless over the summer months involuntarily due to the existence of fewer courses), will not accept a huge slash to our health care.

History of Consciousness graduate student Adam Hefty says, “It’s outrageous that they are cutting our healthcare when top administrators are receiving higher salaries” in reference to a recent San Francisco Chronicle report (May 8, 2009, “Higher Salaries for UC Administrators”). This report reveals that the University of California’s Board of Regents appointed Dr. Susan Desmond-Hellman as the chancellor of UC San Francisco at a salary of $450,000 a year, a nearly 12% increase over her predecessor. UC Davis’s new chancellor, Linda Katehi, the article reports, was recently hired at a salary of $400,000 a year, 27% more than her predecessor.

As if this were not bad enough, the two of administrators responsible for seeking cuts to GSHIP at UC Santa Cruz, Executive Vice Chancellor David Kliger and Dean of Graduate Studies Lisa Sloan “earn” $257.166 and $152,400, respectively (Sacramento Bee “State Salaries”: http://www.sacbee.com/statepay).


Protect GSHIP Committee, UCSC, protectgship [at] gmail.com