The Committee on Graduate Education urges GSAS students in its TF handbook to "ensure that such teaching does not impede progress toward the degree," but as the amount of work outstrips these graduate students' ability to keep up, either their preparation for sections or their research is likely to suffer, students say.

"If grad students are teaching five sections to pay their rent, they are just not going to be effective as teachers," Lauterbach says.

And the experience was familiar to Johnson, as well. "I know people who TF one class at Harvard and one at BU," he said. "It's just too much work."

Dreams Deterred

Not all graduate students will tolerate the difficulties of trying to find housing near Harvard on a Harvard budget.

According Lauterbach, the high cost of living and the low pay of GSAS often deter the best candidates from Harvard.

"The reasons you'll turn down acceptance to GSAS is either because you've been accepted by one of the poorer departments, or you get a package somewhere else you can't refuse."

But given Harvard's enormous wealth, this financial obstacle to education leaves many GSAS students frustrated.