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Representatives from Graduate Student Solidarity host a press conference outside the University of Houston on Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2026, in Houston, Texas. | Oscar Herrera\/The Cougar<\/p>\n
Struggling to shoulder the full cost of health insurance, graduate students are turning to organizing and advocacy to protest their work conditions.<\/p>\n
When fifth-year chemistry doctoral candidate and international student Y.A.N., whose name is withheld to protect her identity, came to UH, health insurance was not top of mind. She expected to pay a few hundred dollars per semester. Instead, she was charged more than $1,000 each semester for the University health insurance plan, which is mandatory for international students.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce I realized how much I was going to be paid and how little I was going to be paid, that\u2019s when I thought maybe I should have gone somewhere health insurance would be covered,\u201d said Y.A.N. \u201cI don\u2019t know if I would have changed my mind because UH is a very good school, but maybe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unlike other Texas flagship universities such as the University of Texas<\/a> and Texas A&M University<\/a>, UH does not subsidize health insurance for graduate student employees.<\/p>\n Y.A.N. said what is especially frustrating is that when safety incidents occur in chemistry labs like the one she works in, workers\u2019 compensation, not student health insurance, covers the costs.<\/p>\n \u201cIn that case, what was the purpose of having health insurance at all?\u201d Y.A.N. said. \u201cIf it\u2019s not covering these kinds of work issues, you\u2019re just forcing a student to pay money back into the institution that\u2019s barely giving them anything.\u201d<\/p>\n Without financial aid from TAFSA, she said she does not know how she would manage. She knows students who have had to ask their parents for help to cover living expenses.<\/p>\n For third-year mathematics doctoral candidate Ricardo Gloria, it is simply difficult to \u201cmake a life here in Houston.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe rents are really high near UH. If you want to get a car, it\u2019s expensive,\u201d Gloria said. \u201cAt the same time, if you don\u2019t have a car, you need to live somewhere where the rent is really high. The money\u2019s not enough.\u201d<\/p>\n Although graduate students across departments attempted advocacy efforts, none were successful in moving the needle with the administration.<\/p>\n As a result, fifth-year mathematics doctoral candidate \u0141ukasz Krzywon said Graduate Student Solidarity<\/a>, along with the Graduate & Professional Students Association<\/a>, became the primary driver behind the Cover Care for Coogs campaign.<\/p>\n \u201cThe goal of GSS was to say, all you graduate students across the University and all of the colleges, this is an issue that\u2019s affecting most of us,\u201d Krzywon said. \u201cThe goal is to get everyone together from across the University to help each other out and pressure the University to do the right thing.\u201d<\/p>\n Representatives from Graduate Student Solidarity host a conference outside the University of Houston on Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2026, in Houston, Texas. | Raphael Fernandez\/The Cougar<\/p>\n Last year, during the State of the University address, organizers handed out flyers to faculty and donors in attendance.<\/p>\n By the end of the night, physics doctoral candidate Lars Walker said all 200 flyers had been distributed.<\/p>\n \u201cMost people generally don\u2019t like when people come up to you with flyers, but once they figured out what we were about, it was pretty well received,\u201d Walker said. \u201cMost of the faculty and donors were like \u2018oh, student health care, of course that\u2019s a great thing.\u2019 More or less, there was pretty much no pushback interpersonally.\u201d<\/p>\n GSS efforts culminated in a Feb. 17 press conference<\/a> held with the GPSA. Third-year history doctoral candidate Seth Uzman delivered opening remarks rejecting what he described as a two-tiered health care system for domestic and international students.<\/p>\n Uzman and other organizers criticized not only the financial strain graduate students face but also what they described as an atmosphere of fear on campus.<\/p>\n \u201cThe University exploits international student labor and yet does not create an environment in which the majority of the graduate student body can feel safe to exercise agency, to advocate, to organize,\u201d Uzman said. \u201cAnytime there is activism around this issue, anything that the University is seeing is really only the tip of the iceberg.\u201d<\/p>\n The campaign has drawn faculty support, including from history professor David McNally, who spoke at the press conference.<\/p>\n \u201cIf everyone self-censors, if everyone decides they\u2019re not going to speak out, then those who are trying to repress free speech are winning, aren\u2019t they?\u201d McNally said. \u201cMy own view is that these are exactly the moments in which we must speak up. And I\u2019m a senior scholar, not a young untenured faculty member. If I won\u2019t speak out, what does that say to my younger colleagues?\u201d<\/p>\n McNally said the Cover Care for Coogs campaign has the \u201cmoral right\u201d on its side and that it is the administration\u2019s \u201cmoral duty\u201d to address students\u2019 concerns.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the things that can happen when you are in your plush offices in administrative quarters is that you lose sight of the priority that your students and your faculty ought to be for your operation,\u201d McNally said. \u201cYou start to treat requests and even demands from your own constituencies as a nuisance, as voices to be shut down. It\u2019s a very, very bad practice for senior administrators, and I hope they\u2019ll get out of their silos and begin to listen to what their own graduate students are saying.\u201d<\/p>\n Y.A.N. said there is a stereotype that graduate students are \u201cscrappers,\u201d whose research brings acclaim to the University, but who can endure financial strain temporarily before leaving.<\/p>\n \u201cI think they think everything\u2019s going to be okay, and if there\u2019s any problem, then they can suffer for a couple of years and then get out and they\u2019ll get a good job,\u201d Y.A.N. said. \u201cSo it just gets passed on to the next generation, and the next generation after that. The root of the bigger problem is that abuse is okay because it\u2019s temporary.\u201d<\/p>\n Graduate students, organizers say, are indispensable to UH\u2019s growth.<\/p>\n \u201cIn order for UH to see itself as a competitive University on par with A&M, UT and others, which I think it\u2019s trying to do, this is definitely a necessary step,\u201d Walker said. \u201cUntil then, it\u2019s just construction projects and celebrations. A University without nice buildings is still a University, but a University without grad students is a collection of donors or something.\u201d<\/p>\n Many of the current organizers may not see the results of their advocacy during their time at UH. For now, they say they are speaking for those who cannot.<\/p>\n \u201cI am proud to wear a UH t-shirt and talk about UH and promote it,\u201d Y.A.N. said. \u201cI love the lessons I\u2019ve learned here. With that said, I also have no problem discussing the issues that should be improved. If I\u2019m going to talk well about my school, I want to be able to minimize the amount of flaws over time, and that starts by actually voicing them.\u201d<\/p>\n The Cougar has chosen not to release identifying information on sources due to safety concerns and a student media alert<\/a> from the Student Press Law Center.<\/p>\n news@thedailycougar.com<\/p>\n \t![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/021726_Grad-Student-Solidarity_RFernandez-01.jpg\")
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