Laura Loeb always wanted to be a professor.
A second-year doctoral student in sociology, Loeb is paying for her six-year degree program mostly through university-allocated stipends and teaching assistant work. Still, she doesn’t know how she is going to pay for her final year when her university support runs out.
“I would probably apply for scholarships, … a loan would be a last-ditch thing,” she said.
Loeb could be one of thousands of students to benefit under a recent recommendation that the U.S. federal government spend as much as $10 billion a year to support graduate education at both the masters and doctoral levels.
In a report released April 29, the Commission on the Future of Graduate Education in the United States argues that graduate students are key in keeping the U.S. competitive internationally and should therefore be supported by the government.
“Graduate education goes beyond just providing students with advanced knowledge and skills ““ it also further develops critical thinking skills and produces innovators,” the report stated. “It is the application of knowledge and skills in creative and innovative ways that will help ensure our country’s future economic prosperity, influence social growth, and maintain our leadership position in the global economy.”
Among the report’s recommendations is a doctoral trainee program that, if adopted, would make some doctoral students eligible for up to $80,000 a year for five years towards the completion of their degrees.
A separate program aimed at master’s degree students would allow universities to apply for $500,000 grants to create new master’s degree programs or to revamp old ones to make them more accessible to minority students.
“The more funding that would be available to graduate students, the better,” said Ron Johnson, UCLA financial aid director. “I think, personally, there is no better time than now for this proposal because education is really going to be the lifeline for our nation, the sustaining element that keeps our economy growing.”
According to Loeb, a lack of funding coupled with the other pressures of graduate study could lead to some students dropping out of their programs.
“I don’t think you can be at graduate school with having those sorts of concerns,” she said.
The report recommends that special attention be paid to fields critical to the nation, including technology, engineering, mathematics and the sciences.
Johnson said he believes that students in these fields are vital to the country in a uniquely international way.
“Clearly we need those skills in our country as other emerging nations are providing greater and greater competition for U.S. in terms of technological advances,” Johnson said.
The U.S. needs to remain competitive when it comes to attracting top-level international graduate students, especially as academic opportunities in countries like China and India expand, the report stated.
For example, Sanket Sanghavi said he left his home in India to pursue a master’s degree in computer science at UCLA because he believed the quality of education in India was no match to what he could get in the U.S.
“U.S. standards are very high,” Sanghavi said. “Here the focus is on research, and (in India), the focus is on book knowledge, mostly.”
International doctoral students would have more opportunity to live in and contribute to the U.S. under the report’s proposal to offer new visas to students studying the sciences and technologies. This would make it easier to gain permanent residency in the U.S.
“What I feel is that most (international students) want to settle here … so that would be a really good option,” Sanghavi said.
However, some students may not be able to reach that point. Sanghavi said he has seen international students who had been admitted into doctoral programs drop out after completing their master’s degrees because the fee burden was simply too much.
“The only problem is that the fees here are too high compared to China and India, so more funding to more students would be better,” Sanghavi said.
The report calls for action to be taken as soon as 2011, despite the present economic climate.
“I believe that currently, we are making huge expenditures for our war effort, and I believe this is equally important to our nation and for the future of our nation,” said Johnson. “I believe all things are feasible if we want to get them done.”