Tech has announced that it will be providing $100 a semester to help cover health insurance costs for graduate research and teaching assistants (GRA and GTA respectively) for the fall and spring semesters of the 2009-2010 academic year.

Only graduate students that have Tech’s health insurance policy (under the insurance company Pearce & Pearce Inc.) as their primary health insurance provider will get the financial assistance while those with health insurance from other companies will not be given any money. The Tech administration is still contemplating whether the subsidies will extend into future semesters.

“I think this is a very good thing providing this health subsidy… Graduate students get salaries every month for the work they do here at Georgia Tech. However, they are required to have health insurance… A lot of times they have to pay for it out of [their own] pockets. With increased tuition, the increased cost of living in Atlanta, [and] the mandatory student fee, all of these increases and costs to graduate students have made it very hard on graduate students to work for Georgia Tech as research and teaching assistants. In order for Georgia Tech to attract the best candidates for graduate school, they need to offer something that is equivalent to what other universities and our peer institutes offer,” said graduate student body president Linda Harley.

Vice Provost for graduate and undergraduate studies Ray Vito give details regarding their long-term plans that will help reduce costs for graduate students even further.

“The plan would be eventually to build some of these [health insurance] costs into grants and contracts for GRA’s, but that will take several years to happen. It is a legitimate cost of hiring a graduate student [since] the health insurance has to be paid for, so it seems to me if the student is supported on a grant then the grant at some point should be helping the students pay for their health insurance.”