Harvard University, the wealthiest school globally boasting a $53 billion endowment, has encouraged graduate students to apply for food stamps.
Graduate students at the university have voiced concerns that the salary they are given is not sustainable to cover the mounds of student debt or their day-to-day necessities after the school recommended students apply for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. The SNAP program was instituted as a replacement for food stamps.
The university’s Health Services offices sent fliers to all “prestigious” graduate students that read, “Fuel your body & stock your pantry. Did you know that grad students may qualify for assistance paying for food & groceries?”
The fliers advertised an informational meeting that would assist students signing up for the program and “feature a registered dietician who can assist students in creating inexpensive, yet nutritious meals that fuel their bodies,” according to a university spokesperson.
Harvard University is the wealthiest school in the world and reportedly has an approximately $53 billion endowment that is used to fund programs, scholarships, and research. The Harvard Graduate Students Union (HGSU) insists that this massive endowment would allow for a $20,000 increase, from $40,000 to $60,000 a year. The HGSU submitted a proposal all but demanding the pay increase.
Twice within recent years, Harvard graduate students have gone on strike, “partly because of their dissatisfaction with low pay from the university,” according to Yahoo Finance. The outlet also notes that nearly 30% of graduate students employed at the school are international, and therefore ineligible to collect any form of federal benefits from programs like SNAP.
Koby Ljunggren who goes by the pronouns “they/them” and is the president of HGSU, a graduate researcher, and a Teaching Fellow at Harvard, said, “This is an underlying structural problem,” and that “Assistance” like the SNAP benefits, is good, “but we can avoid having to get that assistance if we have higher salaries, which the university has the flexibility to do.”
“If the university wanted to provide more salaries to grad students, so they don’t have to go on food stamps, they could, but they choose not to do it. And that’s a huge issue,” Ljunggren added.
Harvard University has not met graduates’ requests for a salary increase nor has anyone from the university publicly commented on the situation.
This piece first appeared at TPUSA.
