Deciding between two fellowships

[NChaku]

I applied from funding from my university and from AAUW to support the last year of my dissertation. I received a dissertation award from my university (32,000) a couple weeks ago and must accept/decline it today. I also just received the AAUW dissertation fellowship ($20,000). I know the AAUW fellowship is much more prestigious than my internal award but it's a 12,000 dollar difference and it's hard to turn down that much money in grad school. I live in a high cost of living area and my current stipend is around 29,000 so it'd be a massive change in my income and I'd probably have to pick up a class or two to make up the difference (which negates the point of the fellowship in my opinion), but everyone thinks I should take the AAUW fellowship. Trying to get a couple more opinions before I decide.

[jmillar]

28 minutes ago, NChaku said:

I applied from funding from my university and from AAUW to support the last year of my dissertation. I received a dissertation award from my university (32,000) a couple weeks ago and must accept/decline it today. I also just received the AAUW dissertation fellowship ($20,000). I know the AAUW fellowship is much more prestigious than my internal award but it's a 12,000 dollar difference and it's hard to turn down that much money in grad school. I live in a high cost of living area and my current stipend is around 29,000 so it'd be a massive change in my income and I'd probably have to pick up a class or two to make up the difference (which negates the point of the fellowship in my opinion), but everyone thinks I should take the AAUW fellowship. Trying to get a couple more opinions before I decide.

Does your university participate in cost sharing? Here is an example of what that can look like:

https://rackham.umich.edu/funding/funding-types/cost-sharing-by-rackham/

[NChaku]

4 hours ago, jmillar said:

Does your university participate in cost sharing? Here is an example of what that can look like:

https://rackham.umich.edu/funding/funding-types/cost-sharing-by-rackham/

Thanks! My university hasn't really encountered this sort of problem before, but they're willing to consider something like this!

[displaynamesarehard]

I don’t have much experience in this, but can’t you also put declined fellowships on your CV? So that when you’re applying for things people can still see that you were selected? Or is it more that you want to be able to say you’re a “_______” fellow?