Changes needed to fix post-enrollment problem

Being a graduate student at Princeton University is a mixed blessing. On the upside, you're at a topnotch research institution with relatively few other grad students vying for a share of the faculty's time and grants. Moreover, for a fixed period — usually four or five years — the University foots your bill entirely, while requiring a light teaching load. On the downside, if that fixed time period isn't long enough for you to complete your degree, you enter a state of academic limbo. No longer an official student, but not yet in possession of a degree, you are left largely on your own to complete your work. Even if you want to, you can't continue to pay tuition and remain a student.

According to recent data, more than half the graduate students at the University do work that extends beyond their fixed enrollment periods. For students who continue to work toward their degrees, problems come in many forms: loans come due, healthcare becomes more expensive and international students must worry about immigration issues.

The University has worked with the Graduate Student Government to address these issues and introduced two new student-like statuses to try to help solve the problem. The new titles do allow for limited access to University resources, such as the library and healthcare, though generally at much higher rates than for regular students. They do not, however, provide housing, an effective buffer against student loan repayment or even the guarantee of visa renewals for foreign students.

Without University support, students in this situation then have to seek out additional jobs to provide for themselves and their families or worry about how to remain in the country — all while trying to finish their research.

Unfortunately, the University has not demonstrated a willingness to address the root of the problem: a skewed expectation of how long it should take Ph.D. candidates to complete their degrees. While it is understandable that Princeton cannot offer its grad students a free ride indefinitely, setting the bar so high that fewer than half the students can finish "on time" seems unreasonable. Even if the administration cannot provide additional funding, they should at least restructure their grants and reword their policies so that degree candidates can remain official students while they finish their work. If policies allowed grad students to supplement University money with their own earnings, they could spread out the same grant over a longer period of time and buy themselves an additional year or two as true "students."

Graduate students come to Princeton to obtain a first-rate education in their academic field. A few changes to University policy could keep them from being diverted from this essential goal.