“I wear glasses and I have contacts and they’re not cheap because I don’t have vision care. I paid 100 percent of pocket and that’s the same thing for dental care. I just pay for my teeth cleanings, out of pocket, and I don’t get X-rays and I don’t get any extra stuff because I cannot afford that,” said Sabrina Rapisarda, a union officer in the Graduate Employee Organization (GEO).
Rapisarda’s story is typical among graduate student employees at UMass Lowell. A GEO survey found that 70 percent of their members forego dental care and 40 percent forgo vision care because of its cost. “A lot of our members have written testimonies about the negative impacts that they’ve experienced as a consequence of not having dental care or vision.” Said Rapisarda.
On average, graduate students at UMass Lowell spend 57 percent of their income on rent.
An argument could be made if you just paid us an actual living wage people could allocate some of that money to those health services that they need,” said Rapisarda.”