Nora Libertun de Duren calls the Presidential Fellowship that supported her during her first year as an MIT graduate student a “blessing with immense returns.”

The fellowship “gave me the time and energy to focus on a research paper that was the basis not only of my dissertation but of a paper later published in a peer-reviewed journal,” she says. Libertun de Duren studied the effects of gated communities on cities in Argentina, earning her Ph.D. in 2007 in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning. That first-year work, she adds, also led to an invitation to speak at the World Bank and, finally, to her current position teaching urban studies at Columbia University.

Graduate students make up 60 percent of MIT’s student population. Through their research, teaching, and subsequent impact in their fields and the world at large, graduate students contribute immeasurably to the Institute’s strength. More and more, these students rely on support from fellowships.

Financial support for MIT graduate students

The annual expenses, including tuition and living costs, for a typical MIT graduate student in 2006 totaled $56,540. Graduate students receive financial support primarily through research assistantships (RAs) and fellowships, while a minority rely on teaching assistantships (TAs).

In the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, the MIT Sloan School of Management, and the School of Architecture and Planning (with the exception of the Media Lab), first-year Ph.D. students traditionally receive support from fellowships. In the Schools of Engineering and Science, where the greatest number of doctoral students reside, most graduate student aid comes from RAs funded by federal and, to a lesser extent, corporate grants. Now, however, there is an increasing need for first-year fellowship support for Ph.D. students in science and engineering, too.

Changes in federal funding, rising RA costs

MIT has traditionally relied heavily on federal backing to attract and provide support for graduate students. But this source of support is at risk. A single change several years ago in federal policies affecting graduate students at research universities, for example, left MIT with an added $20 million-plus yearly obligation to today’s graduate students in selected technical fields.

The U.S. Congress also cut fiscal year 2006 budgets for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), NASA, and the National Science Foundation — the agencies responsible for much of research universities’ funding.

Meanwhile, the grant cost of a 12-month research assistantship (RA) at MIT has risen 45 percent, to $57,604, since 2000. Many faculty thus hesitate to use scarce research funds for first-year students, who tend to spend more time in the classroom than the laboratory.

To reduce the cost of an RA, MIT subsidizes 45 percent of the academic year tuition and 100 percent of the summer tuition of RAs supported by research grants. MIT has more RAs than any peer university — 2,445 compared to 1,658 at Stanford, for example — and thus has higher revenues and costs than do other institutions.

Since MIT’s cost is one of the highest among top research universities, any further reduction in tuition subsidy would threaten to price MIT above the market. Additionally, an insufficient level of subsidy might bias principal investigators in favor of postdoctoral candidates, who don’t pay tuition and tend to contribute less to MIT’s long-term research reputation.

Competition among peer schools

The Institute faces tougher competition from other schools for the top candidates. Some of MIT’s competitors now offer fellowships to all first-year Ph.D. students, regardless of the field. Some even offer 100 percent fellowship support over the student’s entire stay in the program — something MIT cannot afford to do. So, to attract the best graduate students and satisfy the needs of faculty and funding agencies, first-year fellowship support is increasingly important.

How to help

MIT’s last campaign invigorated its graduate fellowship resources, raising more than $170 million. Importantly, that figure includes funding for 110 Presidential Fellowships, which are offered to the top stratum among the more than 15,000 yearly applicants for graduate study. But frankly, MIT needs to boost fellowship funding levels far beyond current figures. There are two basic ways to help underwrite such costs: endowments* and expendable** gifts. Endowing a fellowship honors donors in the same way as a named chair, while also ensuring MIT’s strength.

* An endowed fund is permanent. A portion of the returns from the investment of such funds is allocated each year to the purpose designated by the donor. If you create such a fund, you may give it any name you choose.

** An expendable fund is one from which dollars are used on an as-needed or annual basis without preserving a minimum dollar level. Both principal and income may be spent.