1. As a note of precaution, I think this is a bargaining area that MIT admin is largely unwilling to touch. Certain housing policy demands could lead to an impasse in contract negotiations. I think it is important to be realistic with the bargaining unit about that. I think #2 has the most risk of being beyond agreement (see my next comment). #1 has some risk. This is also a tricky area because on-campus housing affects students outside the bargaining unit. IMO it would be inequitable to win the housing vouchers in the bargaining agreement bc it leaves other grad students out. In effect, bargaining-units members would bid non-members out of housing. There is also a risk of rewarding on-campus members of the bargaining unit and not off-campus members.
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. Current MIT policy is to set rents 10% below an equivalent off-campus unit. Current rates do not allow MIT to breakeven on housing costs, a necessary condition to maintain and expand on-campus housing. So Options #2 and #5 are in competition. The origin of the rent problem is that MIT is that it fails to build housing that can operate at affordable prices. (MIT can be a no-profit landlord, but nobody can be a landlord at loss.) Unfortunately, the amenities and design standards baked into student housing directly burden the rents students can afford.
3. I strongly disfavor vouchers, having previously pushed the idea. In the GSU’s view, why would a housing stipend be superior to higher wage income? Most students prefer fungible income to restricted income. Vouchers are especially bad policy in a fixed-supply market, since the effect is to raise rent levels by the same amount (landlords have full pricing power, not students or MIT). Vouchers could potentially help with my on-campus housing operations, but so would higher wage income. The GSC’s recent approach—do with it what you will!—has been to push for universal grants for graduate students whose necessary housing costs exceed student income (e.g. families). Expanding these grants—either in size or coverage—is a winnable bargaining item. I also think they are essential to students outside the bargaining unit, like the families in Sloan MBA who are food-insecure. We have also pushed to use on-campus housing for students who cannot easily access the off-campus market. My other alternate proposal would be that annual wage increases should—at minimum—cover the weighted average increase in rents. Above the negotiated base raise in the contract, there should be a supplemental increase when rent inflation is high. By contrast, the recent 3-5% multi-year agreements at Columbia, Berkeley, and Michigan are going to be fully eroded by rent inflation. There are obv more sophisticated approaches than this.
4. I am in favor of guarantees about the sanitary standards and timely repairs. Sanitary code is something MIT must meet by law, so it is potentially winnable—if redundant—in a bargaining contract. Timely repairs should be a feature of license agreements if they are not already. Alternately, my goal would be to make MIT housing licensees more like tenants, so that students have implied rights like a covenant of quiet enjoyment. (MIT’s COVID no-guest policy violated tenants’ rights to quiet enjoyment, but it was not an enforceable right because students are licensees, not tenants).
5. I strongly favor expanding the housing portfolio, as do many on GSC and GSU. It is hard, but possible, to persuade MIT of this position. My view is that this must happen through demanding construction cost discipline, alterations in design standards, and student consultation. Winning deeper rent subsidies will undermine this goal. Future students would suffer if we reduce housing investment (potentially, we shift the whole portfolio to have the same problems as Tang/Westgate). The goal should be to direct MIT towards building attainable housing, move away from Site 4-type projects, and to fast-track renovations to Tang and Westgate. Things will get hard for the bargaining team if they get locked into to unbargainable positions by member vote, rather than surfacing members’ interests and gaining trust to fight for them.