HGSU Benefit Funds
The contract between Harvard University and the Harvard Graduate Student Union (HGSU-UAW) establishes several funds to subsidize costs for certain types of dependent care, health care, and emergency issues. The funds are administered by HGSU-UAW according to rules agreed upon by the Union and the University, and disbursed by the University through the existing payroll system. Please review the eligibility criteria and FAQ for each fund on the pages below before starting your application. For most of these funds (with the exception of the Emergency Grant Fund) our contract stipulates that applicants must be stipended student workers, or hourly workers that worked at least 280 hours in the previous six months.
Contact hgsu.benefits@gmail.com with any questions.
- Child Care Fund – Open Spring 2025
- Dental Fund – Open Now. Deadline: November 7
- Healthcare Reimbursement Fund – Open Now. Deadline: November 7
- Dependent Insurance Fund – Open Spring 2025
- International Student Worker Fund – Open Now Deadline: November 7
- Emergency Grant Fund – Applications accepted on a rolling basis
Application deadlines for the rest of this year may be found on this calendar: FY2025 Benefits Calendar.
Please consult the full 2024-25 fund rules for further details.
Eligibility:
Specific eligibility requirements can be found on each of the individual fund pages, but in general you must be an actively enrolled Harvard University student who is working or has very recently worked as a Research Assistant, Instructional Fellow, Pedagogical Fellow or Teaching Fellow. Hourly Research, Hourly Teaching and Course Assistants are eligible for the funds if you work at least 280 hours in a six month period. Eligibility can be complicated, so we created this guide (HGSU Benefit Funds Eligibility Cheat Sheet) to help you figure out which expenses are eligible at which deadline. You may need to go through this cheat sheet a few times to account for all the periods in which you may have been working (e.g. if you are a Research Assistant in DMS, you were working both Spring of 2023 and Fall of 2023).
ALL CURRENT STUDENT WORKERS in any HGSU-UAW eligible position are eligible for the Emergency Fund.
Reimbursement Timeline:
Expect to hear back from us approximately 8 weeks after applications are due. Note, we will email you notice of your reimbursement in the same way we email our weekly newsletters – meaning if you are unsubscribed from HGSU emails, you will not receive notice of your reimbursement from us! If you are currently unsubscribed from our mailing list, email hgsu.records@gmail.com to be re-subscribed. Read our FAQs on the reimbursement timeline here: Reimbursement Timeline FAQs
Bike Benefit: (See our FAQ Here)
Our contract also grants student workers access to several subsidized transit options including “the bike benefit” (see contract Article 26, Section 1C) which provides up to $360 per worker over the course of a calendar year toward the cost of a bike. This benefit is distinct from the funds above as it is not administered by HGSU – applications and receipts for reimbursement are submitted directly to the University, with a deadline of January 31, 2023 for expenses incurred during 2022. The Harvard administration will open up the application sometime this Fall, which you can access at https://www.transportation.harvard.edu/hgsubikebenefit. For questions about the bike benefit, email commuterchoice@harvard.edu and cc hgsu.benefits@gmail.com.
Legal Defense Fund:
Our contract maintains a “Legal Expense Fund,” which reimburses legal expenses where counsel is retained for advising the SW on matters relating to their working conditions at the University. As per Article 24, HGSU is allocated $100,000 each fiscal year to the Legal Expense Fund (“Fund”). The Fund expires on June 30 of each year; any unexpended funds will not roll over to any subsequent fiscal year. While the Fund is limited in size, if the Fund is exhausted in a given year, the Committee may vote to pull allocated funds from the following year’s pool to cover expenses. No more than $200,000 may be used in a single year, and no more than $400,000 may be utilized for the duration of the contract. The Fund’s applications and disbursements are administered confidentially by the HGSU Contract Education and Enforcement Committee.
