Spring GTFs Off of Summer Insurance

As it stands now, if a GTF has summer insurance, he or she is eligible for the summer tuition subsidy. It has been this way for at least the last 10 years.

In negotiations, the UO has asserted that GTFs who graduate in the Spring term were never meant to be eligible for the summer insurance subsidy and that the last 10 years have just been an administrative error.

The UO has produced absolutely no evidence that GTFs who graduate in the summer were ever not meant to be eligible for the summer subsidy, despite repeated requests from us that they do so.

About 200 GTFs who graduate in the Spring term receive the summer subsidy. At about $600 each, that would be about $120,000 the UO would like to take out of the pockets of newly minted Doctors and Masters and put into their own.

We have resisted the UO's proposals to end this subsidy on multiple grounds, including the paperwork issues that would be involved, the incentive it would create for GTFs to delay their graduation until the Summer term, and, well, we just can't see a reason to take money out of the pockets of people who earn poverty-level wages.