In recent years, The Chronicle of Higher Education and the National Research Council have ranked the University below some of the top schools in the country in regards to the number of graduate studies programs and funds allocated for them. But with the passage of the Higher Education Restructuring Act, University graduate students and programs could see an increase in funding.
The major source of funds for graduate student stipends currently comes from tuition revenue, money from the state from the general fund, fellowship money from special endowments, research funding and external fellowships, according to Roseanne Ford, associate vice president for research and graduate studies.
With the institution of the Restructuring Act, the University hopes that it will have more control over tuition, making appropriations for graduate programs more predictable, in turn attracting more students because the University will be able to make commitments earlier on, Ford said.
At last month's BOV meeting, Ford proposed that the University raise endowment funds and use the interest to provide a more reliable source of funding for its graduate students.
"To rank among the best education institutions, universities must recruit and retain the most talented graduate students," she said. "Top-ranked universities invest heavily in graduate students by providing consistent and predictable revenue streams."
In its Universities with the most graduate programs in the top 10 rankings, the NRC ranked the University at 23 with only five programs in the top 10, as opposed to the University of California at Berkeley with 35 programs, Ford said.
One of the major reasons that the University is ranked below the country's top schools with regards to graduate funding is possibly because some of the top-ranked schools are private institutions with higher tuition and more endowment, Ford said.
She added that another major issue concerning graduate funding in the past was the constant uncertainty from the state as to how much money the University would receive every two years with the new budget cycle.
"Graduate students are an integral part of the modern research university," Ford said. "[They] drive the process of discovery, produce new knowledge in partnership with faculty, act as a resource of intellectual capital that attract high-quality faculty, contribute to the research productivity of the University, [and] serve as mentors for undergraduate research."
While the Restructuring Act will allow the Univeristy to allocate more tuition funds to the graduate programs, the most likely source of funding will come from private fundraising campaigns, according to Melody Bianchetto, assistant vice president for budget and financial planning.
The Restructuring Act does not serve to specifically benefit the graduate studies programs, but because they are such priorities at the University, they can reap some benefits from this act, Bianchetto explained.
Since the BOV meeting, Ford said she has become very encouraged that the University will consider the importance of the roles that graduate students play in the University community and it will be an integral part of the ten-year academic plan.
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