UT Austin 6 year funding cap

[hj2012]

http://thenightlytexan.wordpress.com/2014/06/26/ut-austin-graduate-students-against-the-clock-why-we-oppose-the-6-year-fundingtime-cap/

Looks like UT Austin is rolling out new policies for their graduate school. Most controversial is the new six year funding cap, which would prevent students from receiving funding past the sixth year. I was just curious what the forum thought: good idea, bad idea?

[wildviolet]

Our college (not graduate school) has a policy of a 5-year funding cap because we're supposed to finish in 5 years or less. What that means is that sixth year and beyond students are not guaranteed funding, especially for "extra" things like conference travel. However, if they can find research or teaching assistantships, then they can be funded that way.

 

I think it can be a good idea to motivate students to get done on time... I mean, why would you want to stay longer than you have to?

 

On the other hand, I understand if things come up and you must extend your time in graduate school.

[rising_star]

I think it all depends on the program, actually. Part of the pressure is on departments in fields where completing a dissertation often takes a long time (history and English) come to mind, which may need to reform their programs to make it possible for students (especially those entering without a MA) to complete their degree in 6 years. Another issue is how the timeline is counted. For example, in my field, people commonly spend 1-2 years in the field collecting data for their dissertation. In some cases, that could potentially be accelerated but in cases like mine (I was following the implementation of a specific project/technology), it's not really possible to make it happen any faster. In that sense, the entire model for the dissertation would need to change. Because, if I read this correctly, it's a limitation not just on the available funding but also the time to completion. I'm okay with a limited number of years of funding (I actually finished my Ph.D. without using the full 4 years of departmental funding I was given when I started because I supported myself via external fellowships/funding) because it encourages students to adjust the scope of their project, find funding for their work, etc. But an arbitrary limit on how long it takes to complete a degree is just kind of insane.

[bsharpe269]

I hope that if things like this are put in place then field and even subfield are considered. For example, I am in the hard sciences and am interested in computational/theoretical reserach. 4.5 years is usually more than enough time to finish the degree for those in my subfield. Experimentalists in the same department though usually take an extra .5-1 year.

[TakeruK]

Many Canadian schools have a "soft" time limit. By "soft", I mean that most schools in my field will offer incoming students a guaranteed TAship for X years (usually X=5) and after that, they only get TAships (and thus TA money) if there are still openings after they assign the new(er) students. This doesn't mean you get kicked out after 5 years though, since in my field, most of our stipends and tuition is paid through research work with our advisors rather than teaching. But this does mean that your advisor will be paying a larger share of your costs after 5 years, which puts greater incentive for advisors to ensure their students are on projects that can actually be complete in 5 years (and to make sure the advisor actually advises/helps the student finish in 5 years).

 

I think limits like this can be good if they are implemented properly. Some advisors take advantage of the cheap labour that is grad student work (or perhaps the grad student offers a certain skill to the group that would cost more if they hired someone with a PhD already) and want to keep their students around for 5-7 years. By limiting the school/department's contribution to student costs to X years, this makes sure the profs are not hanging onto grad students as cheap labour. It will make professors reconsider their department's PhD programs to make sure students can actually finish in the time limit, which may change degree requirements etc. I think this is all good--most people in my field feel that PhD programs are already too long (I think the median time to degree in my field is between 5 and 6 years, with the median at my school being 5.7 years). 

 

However, limits can also be implemented poorly. If the current median time to degree is like 6.5 years, then it is *not* a good idea to immediately put the 6 year limit in place!! That is, if a limit is implemented, it should not be implemented as an attempt to force a majority of existing students to graduate faster! A change like this needs support from all levels to properly implement. So, I think if a school wants to implement an X year time limit (a good idea), they should first make sure that their students actually already graduate in less than that time limit and first work on reducing the median time to degree before implementing a time limit.

 

That is, I think a time limit is good only when it is present to prevent outlier cases of students taking 6+ years to finish. Such a time limit should also be implemented along with program requirement reviews to make sure the majority of students will not reach this limit! But if a time limit is simply slapped on to "address" the issue of students taking too long, without any review/changes to program requirements, it will have no benefit for students at all.

 

Also, another important part of the support system would be reviews of student progress to ensure that students are moving forward with their PhD work at a rate fast enough to finish before any limit. Committees should review both the student and the advisor and provide feedback to both to ensure the student is on track.

[spectastic]

to clarify, that article only refers to liberal arts studies, not hard sciences. imo, the article is right in that this is intended to attract more quality grad students to boost their program prestige, but really, they're just trying to increase their budget. the graduate vs undergrad enrollment chart is a perfect illustration of what's going on. undergrad enrollment is increasing, the school is getting more financial support all around, and yet LA graduate program fundings are getting cut across the board by this policy... I think because the school sees little return from investing in LA, even though the values the students create can't be quantified by a monetary value.

 

I'm not surprised. We see this all the time. universities are no longer services like they were decades ago, it's now a business. my alma mater used low waged undergrads to load shed some of the TA positions in basic science courses. tuitions are rising faster than they should everywhere. students are getting tricked into taking out risky loans. this is just another way the university system is screwing the students.

[bakalamba]

I think it's a move in a good direction, but it depends. I have friends in programs who are in the first two years and are missing out in funding that's being given to students in their 6-8 year who don't look like they'll be finishing anytime soon. Obviously this is a mistake by the program, and preference should be given to students who are on track, but a funding cap might help with this.

 

The program I'll be attending has an 8 year cap, not just for funding, but as a limit for your degree studies. I think that's fair. The only issue in my field with a 6 year cap is that some students work quantitatively, and can finish earlier, and others work qualitatively, so they need a year or more to work in the field in order to gather enough data to write about. I'd be in favor if it made allowances for this.

[spectastic]

Many Canadian schools have a "soft" time limit. By "soft", I mean that most schools in my field will offer incoming students a guaranteed TAship for X years (usually X=5) and after that, they only get TAships (and thus TA money) if there are still openings after they assign the new(er) students. This doesn't mean you get kicked out after 5 years though, since in my field, most of our stipends and tuition is paid through research work with our advisors rather than teaching. But this does mean that your advisor will be paying a larger share of your costs after 5 years, which puts greater incentive for advisors to ensure their students are on projects that can actually be complete in 5 years (and to make sure the advisor actually advises/helps the student finish in 5 years).

 

I think limits like this can be good if they are implemented properly. Some advisors take advantage of the cheap labour that is grad student work (or perhaps the grad student offers a certain skill to the group that would cost more if they hired someone with a PhD already) and want to keep their students around for 5-7 years. By limiting the school/department's contribution to student costs to X years, this makes sure the profs are not hanging onto grad students as cheap labour. It will make professors reconsider their department's PhD programs to make sure students can actually finish in the time limit, which may change degree requirements etc. I think this is all good--most people in my field feel that PhD programs are already too long (I think the median time to degree in my field is between 5 and 6 years, with the median at my school being 5.7 years). 

 

However, limits can also be implemented poorly. If the current median time to degree is like 6.5 years, then it is *not* a good idea to immediately put the 6 year limit in place!! That is, if a limit is implemented, it should not be implemented as an attempt to force a majority of existing students to graduate faster! A change like this needs support from all levels to properly implement. So, I think if a school wants to implement an X year time limit (a good idea), they should first make sure that their students actually already graduate in less than that time limit and first work on reducing the median time to degree before implementing a time limit.

 

That is, I think a time limit is good only when it is present to prevent outlier cases of students taking 6+ years to finish. Such a time limit should also be implemented along with program requirement reviews to make sure the majority of students will not reach this limit! But if a time limit is simply slapped on to "address" the issue of students taking too long, without any review/changes to program requirements, it will have no benefit for students at all.

 

Also, another important part of the support system would be reviews of student progress to ensure that students are moving forward with their PhD work at a rate fast enough to finish before any limit. Committees should review both the student and the advisor and provide feedback to both to ensure the student is on track.

I agree with this. As a graduate student working overtime and earning practically minimum wage, if the opportunity cost of staying in school isn't enough motivation to haul ass, how much more will a 6 year deadline help? Maybe it will, but it's a good point that handing off the PhD isn't up to the student, but the professor, and grad student abuse is pretty common. this will help stop that.

 

 

 

Although graduate students can be considered cheap labor, I think the bigger driver to keeping grad students around longer is the time and resources required to train new grad students. I mean they all cost the same, but those who've been with the program longer a much lower maintenance, (not to make grad students sound like a commodity or anything..) like a post doc, who's technically a graduate student (ok then cheap labor)

Edited June 27, 2014 by spectastic

[spunky]

well, the liberal arts/humanities haven't been seeing a lot of love lately. a friend of mine sent me this (somewhat recent) article from the new yorker:

 

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/joshuarothman/2014/06/fixing-the-phd.html

 

which kind of touches on the issue of if-something-it's-not-very-profitable-we-gotta-do-something-about-it. 

 

i guess we just need to come to terms that the business model is the way of education, whether we like it or not.

 

although, to be honest, i gotta say if you haven't finished up after 5-6yrs i do believe something's just not working. 

[TakeruK]

I'm not surprised. We see this all the time. universities are no longer services like they were decades ago, it's now a business. my alma mater used low waged undergrads to load shed some of the TA positions in basic science courses. tuitions are rising faster than they should everywhere. students are getting tricked into taking out risky loans. this is just another way the university system is screwing the students.

 

In principle, I don't see a huge problem with the idea that universities/researchers should provide some return on investment of public/taxpayer funds. But I agree that if schools solely think like a "business" (i.e. the return they want is money) then that is too bad! 

 

Canadian TA labour unions can prevent undercutting graduate TA work through their collective agreements. They make it mandatory for schools to hire graduate students to do the TA work that is normally done by a graduate student. I think this is a good thing because it protects graduate students but it also prevents schools from screwing over undergrad students by hiring a less-qualified undergraduate student to do graduate-TA work for cheaper. This is not to say there are no undergrad TA positions at all in Canadian schools. Many schools hire undergrads to grade homework, grade exams, and proctor exams, which is all fine since it's not something you really need a bachelor's degree to do. 

 

Although graduate students can be considered cheap labor, I think the bigger driver to keeping grad students around longer is the time and resources required to train new grad students. I mean they all cost the same, but those who've been with the program longer a much lower maintenance

 

Agree!

 

 

well, the liberal arts/humanities haven't been seeing a lot of love lately. a friend of mine sent me this (somewhat recent) article from the new yorker:

 

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/joshuarothman/2014/06/fixing-the-phd.html

 

which kind of touches on the issue of if-something-it's-not-very-profitable-we-gotta-do-something-about-it. 

 

i guess we just need to come to terms that the business model is the way of education, whether we like it or not.

 

although, to be honest, i gotta say if you haven't finished up after 5-6yrs i do believe something's just not working. 

 

I think that the idea of "if something is not profitable, we should fix it", is good. As I said above, as long as you don't narrow-mindedly consider literal profits, since there are tons of benefits to having a society with educated people at various levels that can't really be quantified as a literal profit.

 

In my field, there is a push to change PhD programs from the old style of "training a full well rounded scholar" to more of a program whose goal is to produce someone able to do independent research within 4-5 years. When I visited schools and talked to different departments, I definitely noticed this divide in types of programs. Personally, I was/am much more attracted to the second type of program. To me, a PhD is an apprenticeship stage for an scientific career (whether in academia or industry or elsewhere). I notice this as programs slim down course requirements (reducing breadth requirements), reduce the number of degree checkpoints/quals/exams and getting students started in research right away. 

 

In my opinion, in today's world, people can't afford to take 7+ years to learn everything about their field simply for the love of the material or the sake of knowing it. If grad programs remain this way, it will mean that only the wealthy that can afford the opportunity costs of grad school can do it (i.e. back to the old days of science). I would be supportive of PhD programs moving towards a "vocational" path where the goal is to train employable skills. I think that learning stuff simply for the sake of learning is still valuable, but not something that should be part of graduate school in today's world. 

[spectastic]

In principle, I don't see a huge problem with the idea that universities/researchers should provide some return on investment of public/taxpayer funds. But I agree that if schools solely think like a "business" (i.e. the return they want is money) then that is too bad! 

 

Canadian TA labour unions can prevent undercutting graduate TA work through their collective agreements. They make it mandatory for schools to hire graduate students to do the TA work that is normally done by a graduate student. I think this is a good thing because it protects graduate students but it also prevents schools from screwing over undergrad students by hiring a less-qualified undergraduate student to do graduate-TA work for cheaper. This is not to say there are no undergrad TA positions at all in Canadian schools. Many schools hire undergrads to grade homework, grade exams, and proctor exams, which is all fine since it's not something you really need a bachelor's degree to do. 

 

private schools charge way more than public schools, but what's the real difference? prestige? student/faculty ratio? better facilities? exclusivity? they're all public perceptions, but really, your hard earned money basically goes into a black box, and in return, you get a diploma that's worth just about as much as any other tier 1 college diploma (speaking in general). nobody in the real world gives a crap if someone went to an ivy league, or got a 4.0, they can get a gold star, I'll take a promotion. I just think it's insane how people think it's ok for these universities to arbitrarily declare the value of an education. It's clearly getting worse, as it becomes a bigger topic in the news. These universities are taking in more money, but they're not investing it, they're downsizing. the only other place for it to go is down someone's pockets, or might as well be an incinerator as far as I'm concerned. I'm not an economist, but this is a bubble, and a serious freaking problem. /rant

[victorydance]

I know that this change is part of a bigger change that many departments at UT Austin are making. I know that the political science department is drastically reducing their incoming class this upcoming cycle than years past. In the past many people got accepted without guaranteed funding, it won't be the case this year.

 

Whether this is part of a bigger funding issue or moving towards a more guaranteed funding structure, I am not sure. 

Edited June 27, 2014 by victorydance

[TakeruK]

private schools charge way more than public schools, but what's the real difference? prestige? student/faculty ratio? better facilities? exclusivity? they're all public perceptions, but really, your hard earned money basically goes into a black box, and in return, you get a diploma that's worth just about as much as any other tier 1 college diploma (speaking in general). nobody in the real world gives a crap if someone went to an ivy league, or got a 4.0, they can get a gold star, I'll take a promotion. I just think it's insane how people think it's ok for these universities to arbitrarily declare the value of an education. It's clearly getting worse, as it becomes a bigger topic in the news. These universities are taking in more money, but they're not investing it, they're downsizing. the only other place for it to go is down someone's pockets, or might as well be an incinerator as far as I'm concerned. I'm not an economist, but this is a bubble, and a serious freaking problem. /rant

 

Yes, I agree with this! Most of what I wrote above was about funded graduate programs where tuition isn't completely real. And, in Canada, there are no private universities (that I know of) except for religious schools (definitely no private prestigious research schools like Harvard et al.). So I definitely forgot about the undergrad side of things since undergrad tuition in Canada range from $2000-$7000 per year. So, what you said above is something I really agree with although fortunately, I did not have to deal with it!

[victorydance]

^ What are you talking about? Trinity Western University is one of the best universities in the world, didn't you know?

 

I am kidding.

[spunky]

^ What are you talking about? Trinity Western University is one of the best universities in the world, didn't you know?

 

I am kidding.

 

i was born in a country where private education = good and public education = bad so i applied to Trinity Western.

 

i got a very nice invitation from the Dean (computer-generated, of course) to tour the facilities when i first arrived in Canada.

 

i went my my boyfriend (now husband).

 

it was... very awkward, to say the least.

 

ON THEIR DEFENSE, though, they DID imply that as long as i kept the gay stuff out from the school, they would gladly take my money.

[spunky]

private schools charge way more than public schools, but what's the real difference? prestige? 

 

i honestly do think prestige can make you or break you. plus the connections that you can make at a place like Standford or Harvard are well-worth their ridiculous tuition.