Grants, stipends fuel academic pursuits

Similar to undergraduate financial aid, graduate school funding can be need-based, taking into account parental financial assets and income. It also, however, may include funding based on academic merit, and graduate students are often offered partial-tuition fellowships.

Many graduate students praised the University’s aid program.

“It’s excellent. Unequivocally amazing,” said Frank Norcross GS, a first-year student in the Wilson School’s MPA program.

Fifth-year music composition student Scott Smallwood GS also characterized the financial aid offered by the University as “fantastic.”

“It’s definitely the best model that I know of,” he said.

Graduate school funding has gradually improved year over year, Graduate School Associate Dean for Administration Sandra Mawhinney said, explaining that stipends have increased “so the stipend [meets] the minimal cost of living.”

“Its certainly is better than at a lot of places and competitive with peer institutions,” Graduate Student Government chair and politics student Christina Hultholm GS said.

The breakdown

Ph.D. students in the humanities and social sciences receive a full fellowship that covers tuition, which will total $35,440 next year, and a 12-month stipend for a minimum of $25,000.

Students sometimes receive a larger stipend, for example when a department or program, like Hellenistic Studies, can supplement their research. Awards, such as the Humanities Council’s Perkins Prize, also increase the size of the stipend. Depending on the department, funding lasts for either four or five years.

“If you’re in the natural sciences and engineering, they pay on a different scale, depending on what the research contract can bear,” Mawhinney said.

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The department of ecology and evolutionary biology (EEB), for example, offers its Ph.D. students a full-tuition fellowship and, as of next year, a stipend of $29,000, department manager Mary Guimond said, adding that many EEB students receive grants from the National Science Foundation.

Funding at other top graduate programs around the country vary based on stipend amounts, need and merit.

Yale funded all of its Ph.D. students entering in 2007, covering tuition with fellowships and providing a minimum of $28,000 in stipend funding for 12 months, plus summer funding and dissertation funding.

According to Harvard’s website for graduate school aid, “Grant recommendations vary but ordinarily do not exceed tuition plus $19,700 in stipend support.”

Mawhinney said that “Harvard’s doing quite well, close on our heels ... [and] Yale has done a very good job to bump up their stipend.”

She added, however, that she thinks Princeton is still “at the top” in terms of offering competitive funding.

Master’s programs

Funding for students pursuing master’s degrees is based on academic merit, funding availability and demonstrated financial need. Master’s programs, however, also consider students future career plans when allocating funding, Mawhinney said.

Special consideration is given to students who plan to enter public service. “We don’t want them to go into debt,” Mawhinney said.

Students pursuing a master’s degree at the Bendheim Center for Finance are usually in the middle of their careers and have been deemed by the University as able to pay the costs of their education, Mawhinney said. Some of them, though, are sponsored by their employers.

“Virtually all our master’s students are covered in one way or another,” Mawhinney explained.

“A lot of other schools don’t offer funding to master’s students,” environmental engineering master’s student Emma Bassein said.

Norcross noted that he had applied to four master’s programs and received financial aid from three, but said that the Wilson School “is by far the most generous and the least stringent as far as signing contracts for public service.”

Bassein also noted that the University was the only school to offer her a financial aid package, which became a decisicive factor in her enrollment at Princeton.

Limitations

Despite the large amounts of money allotted to graduate students, finances are still a significant concern for those unable to secure University housing or those who continue their studies longer than normally expected.

The length of time for which students receive funding depends on departmental restrictions. The majority of departments fund students for five years, though some — like music composition — only provide funding for four years. Students sometimes pursue outside funding to continue their studies after their University funding runs out.

“My department stops funding after the fourth year,” Smallwood said. “That does make it somewhat difficult, but I think it was the right amount of time for me to get done what I needed to get done.”

Students in the natural sciences generally take five or 5.5 years to finish graduate school, Guimond said.

To alleviate some of the time pressure on students raising families, the University allows graduate students who are primary care givers to extend their enrollment and funding for an extra term for each child born.

Because of a shortage of University-provided graduate student housing, some students are forced to find their own housing off campus, which can be costly.

Sixth-year music student Ruth Ochs GS, who lives in the University’s Lawrence Apartments, said that the costs of living there total about three-quarters of her stipend. Off-campus housing can be much more expensive than that.

Nevertheless, many of the graduate students interviewed said they were satisfied with the financial support provided by the University.

Smallwood said he likes the overall aid model “because people can really concentrate more on their work and less on how to feed themselves.”