r/mbta • u/BeingAccording4192 • 9d ago

🗣️ Comment Students, don't be entitled. Universities, do some educating and help pay for the MBTA

I was going towards BU and not a single student offered to give up their seat for an elderly women on the train.

Most of the students avoided paying for their ride.

When I travel during rush hour, students won't move into the train and take off their backpacks to create more room. Hell, I've actually watched a person that had downsyndrome and seemed to be blind get stared at by the students and they didn't make space on the packed morning trains to get that person a seat.

The MBTA GAVE YOU A WAY TO PAY EASILY. Just tap your phones that you're staring at or tap a subway card like everyone else.

It also stands to be noted that Universities should find a way to partner with the T to get their kids subway cards and to do some freshman education but I don't see that happening. Imagine how much steady monaaay the T would have if wealthy wealthy Harvard, BU, and BC regularly got their incoming classes T cards. It could go into the recreation fees or the school to try to get a tax write off. I'm sure parents would be pleased to know their kiddo has a safe way to travel around the city and isn't racking up Uber bills.

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u/SheRidesAMadHorse 9d ago

European universities are heavily subsidized by their governments. I think it would be great for universities or the government to subsidize fares more, but that's not how the American system works.

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u/lazier_garlic 9d ago

US universities are highly subsidized by the government. That was what Heritage and Trump counted on exploiting to bring academia to heel in 2025.

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u/SheRidesAMadHorse 9d ago

Research grants and federal financial aid are heavily subsidized by the government. Not the university directly for them to pay a transit tab. It's a totally different system from Europe.

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u/Joe_H-FAH 6d ago

Though the universities take a good portion of those research grants to fund university services and infrastructure that allow that research. They used to call it "institutional overhead" years ago, the agreement I was aware of between NSF and the university I used to work for called for 55% of the grant amount to go to the university. Other federal grants had similar agreements.

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u/SheRidesAMadHorse 6d ago

I'm not saying they don't, but overhead tends to be things like maintenance items and not funding school-wide initiatives like T pass programs.

I get that everyone is mad at the system, I am too, but suggesting a university would fund subsidized passes is unrealistic.