The recent Provost Report on Graduate Funding DRASTICALLY overestimates the cost of funding all current Social Sciences and Humanities students at the same level as new students for this current year and the next three years.

By $23 Million

How does this happen? The administration estimated the cost of adding a 5th year of coverage by including ~$36,000 in annual tuition. So calculating their cost to them, for students in Advanced Residence Year One as ~$36,000 + $19,000. In fact, Advanced Residence’s tuition is estimated on the bursar’s site to cost $15,000. This tuition estimate has been confirmed by the administration in light of this news.

If you see this spreadsheet it goes into greater depths explaining the math. The cogent facts can be summarized as:

• By mis estimating tuition, the administration overly inflated the estimated cost to support graduate students
• Whereas before it would have taken $57 Million over four years to support current Graduate Students at the same level of incoming Graduate Students, this amount is actually closer to $33 Million
• To cover Graduate Students for the next three years it would actually cost $17 Million (~$3 Million has already been pledged) where before it would have cost around $35 Million for the next three years.

Disclaimer: because our calculations are themselves based off the working report’s numbers, we can’t be sure of the exact figure on the bottom line. But it shouldn’t be wildly different from the $33 million and $17 million respectively.

It is extremely disappointing and disheartening that the Provost Report was allowed to be released with these bad numbers. Student Government hopes that this accounting error is not indicative of how serious the administration is focusing on this issue, and instead is just a simple mistake. Mistakes like these place a burden of mistrust upon this process and it is now on the administrations shoulder’s to bear and overcome this burden.

Substantive steps should be taken to show this matter is being treated with the utmost seriousness and that the administration will be one hundred percent truthful and accurate in all future reporting on this matter.

Especially given that four of the Provost’s recent proposals involve setting up new committees of inquiry. The veracity of these committee’s reports and of the information they have to work must be verified and guaranteed by the administration for future inquiry into these matters is to proceed.

This information was discovered thanks to the hard work of Daragh Grant and I was notified by our Graduate Liaison to the Board, Erica Simmons. Thursday the 28th, the Graduate Report Card on funding will be released on the main quads to respond to the Provost’s report.