ORONO – A group of graduate students who teach courses and do research at the University of Maine want the institution to cover about 50 percent of their health insurance costs just as it does for part-time faculty.

Representatives of the Association of Graduate Students Health Insurance Committee said it is difficult for students to pay a $1,221 yearly premium on the policy the university currently makes available to them. The typical graduate student makes $1,100 or $1,200 for 80 hours of teaching and research each month. Rules also restrict graduate students from taking additional jobs.

“I see it as an undervaluing of graduate students working at the university,” said Heather Short, committee co-chair and a graduate student in geology.

The committee’s plan would cost about a quarter-million dollars a year. There are about 1,650 students in graduate degree programs including about 600 teaching assistants and research assistants.

Unlike their undergraduate counterparts, many graduate students are ineligible for coverage under a parent’s health insurance since they are more than 25 years old.

“A lot of graduate students fall through the cracks because lots of us are in our late 20s and 30s,” said Erwin Melis, co-chair and a 32-year-old research assistant in geological sciences. Melis goes without insurance except for short-term policies when he has gone on trips to Mexico to map mountain geology.

A committee survey last year showed that 36 percent of UM graduate students on assistantships lack any form of health insurance.

“It’s an issue that we’ve been aware of and we’ve been trying to build into the budget for a couple of years,” said Scott Delcourt, director of the graduate school.

Delcourt said that a couple of years ago graduate students voted for a 25 percent higher stipend instead of getting university help with health insurance coverage. The problem is that the price of the health insurance coverage has jumped about $600 a year since then, he said.

Administrators have been considering options to fund 30 percent to 50 percent of the health insurance bill for graduate students involved in teaching or research. To make it work, it would be mandatory for anyone not covered under another plan to buy into the university’s coverage, he said.

UM and the committee are working with an insurance broker on possible plans.

But Delcourt said funding any plan will be the biggest challenge. “We’re in a fairly bleak funding picture given what’s going on at the state [level],” he said.

One funding possibility offered by the committee would be to tap some of the nearly $5 million a year that comes with federal research grants for “indirect costs.” This would apply only to students doing work related to the grants.

Delcourt said the idea is appealing, but there are still some grant accounting questions related to adding health insurance to other indirect costs like heat and lights.

The committee said health insurance costs are a factor in some graduate students’ decisions to drop their studies. Delcourt said he does not believe that’s a major issue.

Universities that are comparable to Maine fall on both sides of the fence in helping or not with graduate health insurance. But Delcourt said that if Maine does add health insurance assistance it would be a competitive advantage for the university in attracting students.