UCLA’s grad student aid near lowest among UCs

By Noah Grand
Daily Bruin Contributor

A recent study of graduate student financial aid indicated UCLA
is seventh out of nine UC schools in the amount it awards
students.

The average UCLA graduate student receives $18,196 per year from
the university. After tuition and fees, $9,364 is left for the
student to live on. UC San Francisco graduate students get the most
at $14,011, and UC Berkeley is second at $11,825.

UCLA officials said they fear the university could be losing its
competitiveness in attracting top graduate students.

“There is agreement among graduate deans that UCLA is
losing competitiveness in the amount of money available to recruit
graduate students,” said Jim Turner, assistant vice
chancellor of graduate division.

Graduate students often have different financial needs than
undergraduates, including non-resident tuition and new living
conditions.

“An undergraduate may be comfortable with sharing a room
with another person, but typically by the time you’re a
graduate student you need your own personal space,” said
Irene Yun, University of California Students Association vice chair
and a graduate student in neurobiology at UC San Francisco.

The graduate division gives out $22 million a year in
fellowships during the fall. Each department is given an amount of
money to award based on how many students are progressing in their
graduate program, according to Turner. There is also $15.8 to $16
million donated to specific departments in the form of one-time
gifts and endowments, which generate interest used to fund
fellowships annually.

The graduate division determines how much money is available and
how much was spent at the end of the fiscal year. Projections
change because students can lose fellowship eligibility and also
because interest rates can vary.

The graduate division then reassigns money given for students
meeting certain criteria to specific graduate students asking for
aid. This way, fellowships that can only be given to minority
students can be awarded without being based on ethnicity, according
to Turner.

“By assigning fellowships this way we are still able to
use the money in the way intended by the donor,” Turner
said.

Turner said he does not feel this process violates SP-1 or
Proposition 209, which banned the use of affirmative action
throughout the UC and the state respectively, because race, gender
and ethnicity are not used as criteria for who gets money ““
only for which pool they get money from.

Eugene Volokh, a law professor who helped write Proposition 209,
said the process won’t likely be challenged as it stands
now.

“It sounds like a difficult legal issue. Right now, no one
is being hurt or helped. The problem shouldn’t come
up,” Volokh said.

If a student received money based on their ethnicity, then,
Volokh said, the process would likely be found
unconstitutional.

If there is money left over from an ethnic fellowship, it is
assigned to a worthy student who isn’t working on their
dissertation yet, according to Turner. In his 10 years, Turner has
never had a fellowship that could not be assigned.

If the graduate division is over budget by more than $5,000,
they give out additional fellowships.

“We try to give enough money to make a difference. We try
not to give any award less than $5,000, and we probably should
decide to up that,” Turner said.

Many universities use fellowships to try to attract promising
students to their graduate school.

“I was deciding between UC Berkeley and UCLA, but UCLA
offered me financial aid,” said David Eason, a first-year
graduate student in the history department.

The University of California is currently conducting a survey of
admitted graduate students to see if money is a major factor in
decisions.

“We tried to develop a survey to go beyond anecdotes. We
started the survey because of interest and concern in whether
UC’s financial support is competitive. We had no hard data,
and people want to know,” said Kate Jeffery, UC director of
student financial support.

This survey was only a trial, so few conclusions could be
reached.

“We found that a $1,000 difference doesn’t matter
much. $5,000 does, and $10,000 is big. In those cases, usually a
student got an award from only one institution,” said
Jeffery.

A more comprehensive survey is planned for next year. Part of
this survey will address the differences between science students
and humanities students.

“The sciences have kept up better than the humanities and
social sciences. The average life science student gets $20,000. The
average social sciences student gets $14,000,” Turner
said.

The difference comes from the department’s main source of
income. The average life science student in the UC system gets more
than $5,079 in federal fellowships, but the average humanities
student only gets $359, according to Jeffery.

“These by discipline differences are mirrored across the
country. It’s typical that students in the sciences are
better supported,” Jeffery said.

Science graduate students often get positions as research
assistants, where they get paid for helping a faculty member with
their research. The researcher uses money from federal grants to
pay his assistants.

Graduate students in the humanities often work as teaching
assistants. Eason will work as a TA all year long next year.

“In the humanities and social sciences, a TA offer is a
really big component of an admissions package,” said Martin
Griffin, president of the Graduate Students Association.

Jeffery also said the UC Office of the President is trying to
solve some of the imbalance.

“One thing you will see UC has done to some extent is use
more unrestricted money to make up for some of the higher federal
funding in the sciences,” Jeffery said.

UCOP has formed the Commission on the Growth and Support of
Graduate Education in order to help address these problems.

“We have two main concerns. We are concerned about growth
and whether we will be able to remain competitive,” said
Sandy Smith, the principal staff member on the commission.

The UC office expects to add about 11,000 additional graduate
students over the next 10 years.

“We must attract graduate students and treat them well
while they are here. We must come to grips with what need to do to
recruit the best students, support them and help them while they
are here,” Smith said.

MONEY DISTRIBUTED TO GRADUATE STUDENTS

Limited applicant scholarships are assigned to deserving
students in order to follow a donor’s wishes without violating SP-1
and Proposition 209.

SOURCE: UCLA Graduate Division Original by MAGGIE WOO/Daily
Bruin Web Adaptation by VICKI FENG