After years of pushing for expanded health care benefits, graduate students and their families can finally enjoy full coverage.

It's about time.

Beginning this fall, families and spouses of graduate assistants and graduate fellows will be covered by Penn State's health care plan.

Penn State President Graham Spanier informed the university's Board of Trustees of this change in policy at the annual trustees meeting in Washington, D.C. on Thursday.

While coverage for all graduate students, not just graduate assistants and fellows, does not appear to be on the horizon, this is still a major victory for those students who have pushed Penn State to improve the quality of life for graduate students at this school.

It's surprising that this development has taken this long to come to fruition.

Graduate assistants and fellows are both students and employees at Penn State.

As such, they have to balance the demands that accompany both roles. Consequently, they deserve to enjoy the benefits that go along with both roles. As employees of the university, they deserve to be treated accordingly.

This new plan shows how change can be implemented when an organized group of students has the patience and the conviction to push for new policy.

The Graduate and Fixed-Term Employment Organization, a group working to unionize graduate students and improve graduate student life, was formed in 1999. In a Collegian article, Pell said that she "has been pushing for the full health care coverage since June of 1999." Coincidence?

We applaud the administration for listening to the students and changing this policy. As Eva Pell noted, this will make Penn State much more attractive to prospective graduate students and will make Penn State's graduate programs more competitive with other schools' programs.

It is, indeed, "the right thing to do."