GSAS Financial Aid Gets $4M Boost

University President Lawrence H. Summers has said increasing graduate student financial aid will be one of his top priorities, but the individual schools aren’t waiting for him to make his move.

The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) will receive $4 million in new financial aid funds for next year from the coffers of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS).

The funding, to be announced today, will be directed at providing increased aid and stipend support for graduate students. It follows an aid increase of $3.2 million last year, making a total of $12.8 million over the past five years.

In his inauguration speech and in speeches and interviews since, Summers has stressed the need to place financial aid at the University’s graduate schools on a level comparable to that of the College, where students can attend regardless of financial circumstances.

As the first step toward developing a plan to increase aid, Summers is surveying the schools’ aid systems and receiving estimates of their unmet needs.

According to a FAS press release, Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles’ decision to raise GSAS funding came after several months of study.

Knowles could not be reached for comment last night.

The $4 million aims to broaden programs in the humanities and social sciences and support science departments’ plans to phase out first-year teaching requirements.

Humanities and social science fellowships will be expanded to cover a second summer of study, while 50 students in the humanities will receive research awards that include a summer stipend and travel expenses.

Dean of GSAS Peter T. Ellison said he was pleased with the increased funding.

“This new infusion of resources for graduate student financial aid will enable us to continue to transform the graduate experience at Harvard,” Ellison said in the press release.

Last week, Ellison estimated that GSAS needed about $5-8 million in additional funding per year to fully fund its graduate students.

GSAS is not the only school in recent weeks to announce aid increases.

The Graduate School of Education (GSE) has also announced new merit scholarships funded by Presidential discretionary funds, authorized under former University President Neil L. Rudenstine.

GSE Dean for Academic Services Joel C. Monell said that the new scholarships would fill a prominent gap by providing full multi-year awards to a number of doctoral students.

Monell said that the current loan burden on exiting students is too much for them to bear. He estimates that overall $10 million in graduate student need still goes unmet.

As Summers searches for a solution to the graduate schools’ aid woes, he said he will use discretionary spending where it is appropriate. However "for long-term recurring expenditures we're going to be looking for permanent sources of funding," Summers said.

And while funding decisions are ultimately made on a school by school basis—as was the decision to increase aid at GSAS—Summers has stressed that graduate student financial aid is a University-wide problem and will require University-wide decisions.

—Staff writer David H. Gellis can be reached at gellis@fas.harvard.edu.