Health Services Should Validate Grad Student Parking

I am a new graduate student at the University and a subscriber of coverage for my wife and newborn son. As such, I pay out-of-pocket a whopping $2,955 per year for dependent coverage alone. The total health-care premium for my family is $4,175.

I am shocked to learn that University Health Services (UHS) has a policy of not validating for parking for students. This is a hard policy to swallow given the outrageously high parking rates at the parking garage serving Holyoke Center ($3 per half-hour) and the fact that UHS does validate for Faculty members and other University employees who pay less in premiums out-of-pocket than I do.

How do you justify this policy when it is students who are in greatest need of cost relief? It adds insult to injury when we have to wait up to an hour for a scheduled appointment. -Loel S. Solomon, GSAS