Funding and Budget Question

[Beowu1f]

I was initially accepted to a program that seemed fairly optimistic I would receive funding. However, after their budget meeting, they said they had no more funding available and that even if students who were offered funding declined their offer, they would not extend any further offers. Does anyone know why this is the case/if this is at all common in terms of funding? Thanks!

[MarineBluePsy]

Well the only people who will truly know why is the department and it sounds like they aren't willing to provide any further details.  I am not sure if this is common or not, but it sounds to me like they may have made offers based on assumed funding.  For example, suppose they had reserved funding for 4 teaching assistants and 3 professors said they applied for grants that would allow each of them to fund a research assistant.  The smart move would be to move forward assuming 4 funding lines because that money exists, but they may have falsely assumed those 3 grants were a done deal and made offers to 7 students.  Then of course came the bad news, grant applications denied, and now there's no additional funding to support the additional 3 students they extended offers to.