To the Editor:
In the article on the Graduate School's announcement of sixth-year funding ("Sixth-year PhD funding announced today," April 20), the meaning of "support" needs clarification. According to the Dean of the Grad School's website, rising sixth-years in the humanities and social sciences who applied for funding next year could apply for summer funding, health insurance, enrollment fee, health fee or stipend for one or two semesters. Because stipend support is a specific category, the 58 percent of students who will receive stipend support implies that 42 percent of graduate students will go without stipend support — the money they need to live on — next year. Furthermore, the 58 percent figure in the article is murky because it includes students who only received one-semester stipends.
The article also claims that "80 percent of those requesting funding will receive the full amount they asked for, and the remaining 20 percent will receive partial funding." However, this does not mean that all students are receiving the funding they need to live, as applicants in this process could apply for a variety of funding options short of a full stipend. They were also led to believe by statements from the Grad School that their applications would be more competitive if they asked for less. This means that students who were concerned about their applications getting denied asked for less than the amount they needed just so that they could get something. The Grad School claims that 99 percent of sixth-years in the humanities and social sciences are supported with some form of funding, but as shown on the dean's website, the amount of funding provided ranged from $23,855 to as little as $330.
Lindsay Goss GS
Wen Jin GS
Arturo Marquez GS
John Rosenberg GS
Anne-Caroline Sieffert GS
