Despite financial troubles, the Graduate Student Association (GSA) has created a fund to assist bereaved families of graduate students who have died.

A bereavement fund was initiated by GSA President Brian Borawski, who said the funding would come from graduate student donations. "I don't think that there's anything better to do with our time," Borawski said. "If we wanted to do it just for us, I don't think people would be as generous."

Borawski said the funding project was being looked at before the death of five graduate students last spring, and those incidents made the project more applicable.

He said that after looking at the insurance plans offered to graduate students from the university, he realized that they did not provide enough support to families who suffered a death -- a death of anyone under the plan, including the students or their immediate family members. "This was a gap that Penn State hadn't tackled," he said.

About 15 years ago, Penn State officials eliminated the GSA program Blue Cross/ Blue Shield, which provided students with insurance, because they felt it was not in the best interest of a student-run organization to be selling insurance, Director of Unions and Student Activities Stan Latta said.

Penn State's current options for graduate students are the basic Student Accident and Sickness Insurance Plan and the Graduate Assistant and Graduate Fellow Health Insurance Plan (GA plan), both yearly plans.

The GA plan is more expensive than the basic plan and provides better benefits, including 10 times more money if the student is injured or sick.

Though neither of the university's plans provides life insurance, the plans will cover preparation of the body for international students and return of the deceased, if he or she lived overseas, but does not cover any funeral or other expenses, Kline said. The bereavement fund the GSA is preparing plans to pay for those uncovered costs.

Manager of student insurance Karen Kline said the GA plan costs $1,213, and the basic plan costs $814. But after subsidization from the university, she said, graduate students enrolled in the GA plan pay only about $250 a year.

However, students not in assistantships or fellowships are not eligible for the GA plan. Last year, there were 3,266 students enrolled in the basic plan and 4,369 enrolled in the GA plan.

Though GSA is facing financial difficulties, Borawski said, it would continue the bereavement fund and look for other outlets to help the association's funding.

Last year, the organization had a 92-percent cut in scholarships from the university, which negatively affected the organization's participation and financial issues.

Borawski said GSA usually has a $4,000 yearly deficit and has been covering that with the Blue Cross/Blue Shield program, which raised substantial money before it was replaced.

Borawski expects GSA to be bankrupt in about 12 years if the funding system doesn't change, because eventually, the money leftover from the Blue Cross/Blue Shield program will run out.

"We're sitting on money," Borawski said. "But why do we want to cut our buffer away when we have no way to get it back? We will eventually go broke without another source of funding."

Ashish Kathuria (graduate-electrical engineering) said GSA helps in matters such as the bereavement fund and the cost of thesis paper, but he is aware of the financial difficulties. "The problem right now is accumulating funds," he said.

Faculty Senate Rep. Julie Sanzone said she is not overly worried about GSA finances because every time money was asked for, it was received.

GSA is currently relying on its savings and money from University Park Allocations Committee and Student Affairs, and funds from the International Student Services are in the works, Borawski said. But the income is far too low to sustain the organization much longer, he said.