Higher Education Health Insurance: How Student Underinsurance Fuels Health Inequities and Barriers to Education

Abstract: Access to healthcare is a fundamental determinant of well-being, yet higher education institutions often fail to provide comprehensive health insurance for their students, particularly at the graduate and professional levels. This raises profound ethical concerns about justice, equity, and institutional responsibility. Who gets to pursue higher education without compromising their health, and who is left behind due to financial and medical precarity?

This Enrichment Hub session will use storytelling to humanize the ethical dilemmas surrounding student underinsurance. Students and professionals will share firsthand experiences of how inadequate health coverage has shaped their academic trajectories, exacerbated social inequalities, and, in some cases, created insurmountable barriers to education. Through these narratives, we will explore broader ethical and structural questions: What obligations do academic institutions have in ensuring equitable access to healthcare? How does the commodification of education intersect with disparities in health access? What are the long-term implications of forcing students to choose between medical care and academic success?

Participants will leave with a deeper understanding of the bioethical dimensions of student underinsurance, as well as practical advocacy tools, institutional inquiry frameworks, and policy action resources to promote meaningful change.

Keywords: Student Health Insurance, Health Equity, Higher Education Access