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Student Leaders Report
Are Graduate Students Second Class Citizens at MIT?
As many of you know, solving the issue of crowding in the undergraduate residence system has become an Institute priority of late. The preferred solution is taking away graduate beds from established graduate residence communities. I would like to share with you why this approach is hurtful in more ways than one.
Before I address these issues, here are the background details as presented in Chancellor Clay’s e-mail (see http://web.mit.edu/gsc/www/Committees/HCA/hca.html):
Problem: There are about 130 undergraduate students who live in “crowded” settings due to bigger than expected freshman classes during the last two years.
Solution: Take 140 beds away from the graduate housing system.
Main argument: Graduate students will be getting a 750-bed residence in fall 2002. Taking away 140 beds will still leave 600 more beds for graduate students. MIT has steadily added many graduate residences over the past 20 years, but has done nothing for its undergraduates.
First, there are several flaws in the main argument. A quick search of the MIT Websites will reveal that the only residences to be added to the graduate housing system since 1985 have been Edgerton (190 beds) and Warehouse (125 beds). In 1985, MIT was able to house less than 1300 graduate students. Today MIT is able to house about 1700 graduate students. That leaves about 29% of its graduate students on campus (including GRTs); everyone else lives off campus.
The addition of 215 beds in the past 20 years when the demand for on-campus graduate housing has “gone through the roof” is hardly what one could describe as “steady addition” to the graduate housing system.
The high cost of living (increasing sharply year-to-year primarily due to rent hikes) in the Cambridge/Somerville area is well documented. The rent levels in Cambridge have increased over 100% since 1993. The extreme financial difficulties that graduate students go through living in Cambridge/Somerville are also well known. While this has been a problem for at least the past three decades (the latter decade being the worst) MIT has been slow to address it.
Concerns on the part of graduate students about this whole situation are numerous. First, the administration was aware that there would be a potential crowding crisis in 1998 (if not before that). Many of us are left to wonder why then the plans for the construction of Simmons weren’t changed to accommodate a larger population. Why weren’t alternate arrangements made to rent/lease property close to MIT? This had been done before with Huntington Hall, for example. Why, now, do graduate students have to be penalized for errors and miscalculations in which they had no part?
Don’t get me wrong. Graduate students don’t oppose MIT’s idea of solving the undergraduate crowding problem. We don’t, however, think that graduate beds should be sacrificed for that. Graduate students who live in doubled rooms know what it is like to be in such a situation. But the point is, having a place to stay is still better than having to go to Cambridge or Somerville to rent a room which costs $800/month (more than 50% of even the highest doctoral net RA stipend, and 62% of the masters net RA).
Another issue is housing of the undergraduate students in Ashdown. What bothers many of us is that there seems to have been no second thought given to the ramifications of doing this. Century-old Ashdown house, the oldest of the MIT residences, has been the model for community amongst the graduate residences. Many students have lived in that “so successful” system. Housing the undergraduates in Ashdown will only serve to break up the community at Ashdown and its continued sustenance. The proposal of housing undergraduate students in Ashdown contradicts the very recommendations that MIT administrators cite. The RSSC (Residential System Steering Committee) report of 1999 states: “The conversations between the members of the RSSC and the residents of Ashdown House (in particular) demonstrated the passion that many graduate students have for contributing to and benefiting from the residence experience." The 1998 report of the Task Force on Student Life and Learning also cited the need for sustaining centers of community and building more community among graduate students. What is the message that MIT is sending to its graduate students by opting to house undergraduates in Ashdown? Building and maintaining community among graduate students is not an important consideration?
The plan to sacrifice graduate beds to solve an undergraduate problem has given many graduate students the perception of being treated as “second class.” This is definitely not the impression that graduate students should be given when the aim of the Institute is to build community amongst its student constituencies.
What impression does MIT want to give its prospective students? Chancellor Clay said that he doubts the “current controversy will cause graduate students to go elsewhere.” This is not a valid argument. MIT will always have students taking up places. But the question is, will MIT be able to attract the best of the best? And that’s the challenge faculty have to deal with. The decision to attend a particular graduate school no longer has simply to do with the quality of the program. Many other considerations such as quality of life, quality of mentoring, and advising come into play. Chancellor Clay highlighted recently that at least MIT houses some of its graduate students on campus and that many other schools don’t house any at all. Let me put this argument into perspective.
Schools that choose not to house graduate students on campus do so because the cost of living in areas nearby to these schools isn’t prohibitive. The stipends they provide is more than sufficient to cover housing costs. An example of this category is Princeton.
The other category is where schools are housed in neighborhoods where the cost of living is expensive. Columbia, Stanford, and MIT fall into this category.
Columbia houses all of its graduate students on campus. Stanford already houses 60% of its 7500 graduate students on campus. Starting this academic year, Stanford is offering a subsidy payment to nearly 750 graduate students who don’t live on campus. Stanford also has leased out apartments for 750 students and rented them out to its graduate students at a subsidized rate. In addition, Stanford has plans for adding new graduate housing in steps. By 2002, they will have 300 new units; between 2002 and 2005 they will add an additional 1000 units. The stipend levels at Stanford are higher than MIT. Their cost of living is similar to Cambridge. In addition, they receive housing subsidies.
In comparison, MIT charges market rate for its owned off-campus apartments where graduate students live. MIT considers these properties as “revenue generating.” MIT’s on-campus units are priced at close to market rate. They are not subsidized. In addition, MIT has no clear long-term commitment to its graduate students about housing issues. MIT does nothing to help offset the cost of housing faced by its off-campus residents. Bottom line: Other schools that are in expensive areas do more than MIT in addressing the cost of living issues of its graduate students.
The lack of a clear commitment from MIT to tackle the problem of quality of life of its graduate students will deter the very best students from coming here. While one can highlight that there was a stipend increase reflected this year, most students are worse off today than they were before the increase. In line with the stipend increases also came a 5% increase in rent on campus, 12% increase in MIT’s owned off-campus residences, between 10% and 15% increase in rents in the Cambridge/Somerville housing market, over 10% increase in the cost of the extended MIT health insurance plan, and significant increases in food costs. Current students do realize that it’s not all “give.” It’s “give-little and take-much-more!” And what will current students be telling prospective students?
The housing crisis, along with many previous issues that have led MIT to make rash and poorly thought out decisions highlights a major deficiency. MIT needs a master plan; a master plan that everyone at MIT is aware of. There should be master plans for everything that MIT wants to, and should, do. And this master plan should be drawn up in consultation with all the constituents. MIT cannot afford to continue jumping from one crisis to the other; it needs to be proactive. MIT shouldn’t just wait until court cases have been filed against it before reacting! The master plan will help provide a clear picture of MIT’s commitment to its graduate students. At least this will help clarify whether or not graduate students are indeed “second-class!”
It has been noted in many circles that “Graduate Giving” is low compared to undergraduate giving. The argument for this has been that generally graduate students feel less attached to their school of graduate study. How will a wavering commitment and broken promises about graduate housing at MIT help improve graduate giving here in future?
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