Despite years of being underpaid and the university's unsure financial future, graduate students are projected to receive higher stipends than ever before.
A 10-year plan released last year by the university includes a proposal to set the minimum stipend a graduate student can receive at $18,000 for a little more than a nine-month period, which is considerably higher than the current minimum amount.
For the 2009 fiscal year, graduate students are projected to earn about $14,000 for a nine-month commitment, which, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education, is still less than the nation's leading graduate institutions, where graduate students receive about $18,000 a year.
In a discussion Friday with the Graduate Student Government, Provost Nariman Farvardin said the university plans to get this money by lowering the number of students admitted into some graduate programs, essentially splitting the money among a smaller group of people.
He said during the past two months, all colleges and departments have been assessing their graduate programs to determine the number of students that should be enrolled in them. He said some of the programs have become too big, and the programs need to be adjusted to match the market demand for graduate degrees in those fields.
"I am a strong believer that we are doing a disservice to graduate students by admitting them into our programs when the market has no need for them," Farvardin said.
Thomas Castonguay, an associate dean at the graduate school, said there are 115 graduate programs at the university, and not all of them are funded as well as others.
He said Farvardin's plan to change the number of students in the programs is not downsizing, but "right-sizing."
According to Castonguay, the numbers will be adjusted on a unit-by-unit basis, so only the programs that have too many students will decrease enrollment.
He said it is too soon to know for sure what the numbers will be, but he thinks the students will benefit from this plan because the university will be able to increase the size of the stipends they receive.
"[Because of the recession], we may have been served lemons, but we may be making lemonade," Castonguay said.
However, in the face of recent budget cuts and the economic recession, many graduate students are worried about the plans of the provost not coming to fruition, a fear that he said is legitimate.
Graduate students said they currently get a small stipend increase each year, but it is only enough to cover the cost of living, which also increases.
GSG President Anupama Kothari said she is afraid the university will lower graduate student stipends, but is happy to have Farvardin as an ally in the matter. She said many graduate students not only have to handle the cost of living, but many also have families and mortgages to worry about.
"We are just hoping that they don't cut any of our income because we don't have much of it," she said. "We're such a small part of a big pool [that the university can take money from]."
According to Matthew Pragel, a mathematics graduate student, although he and his fellow graduate students receive small increases, they are barely enough to cover the costs of living in the Washington area, and they have not been as significant as the strategic plan promises.
"I appreciate the university being committed to helping to provide us with efforts to increase our funding and our ability to live in the metropolitan-D.C. area, but I still believe that housing costs are a major issue and are definitely important to remember," he said.
Farvardin said there will be more budget cuts to come for the university, even as soon as next month, and that it is impossible to tell when the university's budget problems will end.
"The budget is a very painful topic to speak about because we're not talking about budget increases, but budget decreases," Farvardin said.
However, despite the grim economic outlook, the provost said he is confident that most of the goals outlined in the strategic plan can be accomplished within a decade, including the $4,000 increase in the minimum graduate stipends.
"When developing the strategic plan, I was completely cognizant of the fact that in a 10-year period you can expect one, maybe two periods of economic downturns," he said. "I just didn't know one would come within the first year of the plan'simplementation, but I remain very optimistic in the long term."
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