By snoadmin
Next year, CSU graduate students may not receive financial aid. Pending a decision on Wednesday, nearly half of qualified graduate students will not receive aid for the 2012-2013 year.
The CSU sytem is contemplating ending cash grants for graduate students as a way to save money as the state keeps cutting back on education. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, graduate students from all the CSU campuses have already received email notices, informing them that their grants may be cut next year.
The grants will be replaced by a loan with a 6.8 percent interest rate. Currently there are about 40,000 graduate students who qualify for the grants. Cutting the grants will mean a $90 million loss to nearly 20,000 students. That’s a huge number that is meaningful to both sides.
$90 million will help fund a lot of students. Graduate students already miss out on Pell Grants and Cal Grants since only undergraduates qualify for that money. But at the same time, that’s a huge amount of money to save in a time when education is strapped for cash.
The CSU system is facing nearly $200 million in losses for next year in addition to the $750 million it lost this year. There is always a scramble to recoup yearly losses, and this is just the newest way to do it.
Unfortunately for graduate students, this may not be up for debate. Executive director for the California Student Association, Miles Nevin says the cuts are definitely going to happen.
“As far as we know, it’s a done deal,” Nevin said. “The funds are being pulled and being placed somewhere else. We just don’t know where.”
CSU students have already known about the challenges the system has faced and have dealt with numerous cuts and fee increases. Times are tough, and if the CSU system has to cut funds, maybe cutting from graduate students is a good place.
Cutting grants altogether for undergraduates would be a terrible decision, since more students would be hurt by it. The pool of graduate students is a lot smaller than the undergraduate population so, even though thousands of students will be affected, it will be a smaller hit.
Certain professions require students to go to graduate school. So those students will have to take the hit. It is unfair, but schools are running out of options at this point. When it comes to taking money from graduates or undergraduates, taking money from graduates is the lesser of two evils.
Eliminating grants will give students another factor to consider when applying for graduate school. In this economy, not many students can afford to go to graduate school even with grants. If grants are taken out of the picture, there will be even less of an incentive to go. If you were trying to get a master’s degree in history of Spanish, maybe the best choice would be to skip graduate school or apply to schools in another state.
Hopefully, students will not have to face such tough decisions. The CSU presidents will meet Wednesday to discuss what to do with graduate funds. Hopefully they will not do such a disservice to the students.
