Cost-of-living stipend increases and student funding enhancements

Copied to: DGSs, Chairs, registrars

In this message: Update on graduate student support: cost-of-living stipend increases for all graduate students; expansion of the Dean’s Emergency Fund to include medical leave hardship awards; increases to the family subsidy and GSA Conference Travel Fellowship budgets.

November 18, 2021

Dear graduate students,

Today I have the pleasure of updating you on the projects about which I wrote at the beginning of the semester. You may recall our plans to undertake a New Haven cost-of living analysis, investigate increasing the family support subsidy, and consider expansion of the Dean’s Emergency Fund to include medical leave hardship awards. After extensive discussion with the Graduate Student Assembly (GSA) Steering Committee and Yale leadership, I am delighted to announce progress advancing several goals through significant new investments in graduate student wellbeing.

Here are the enhanced sources of support you can expect to see soon:

Stipend Increases
Since 2002, all Yale Ph.D. students have received a living stipend providing a level of support sufficient to allow them to devote themselves to full-time study. In recent years, the cost-of-living in New Haven has risen more quickly than usual, placing pressure on regular stipend increases and on students' budgets. We are now able to increase the stipends for all students sufficiently over the next two years to comfortably exceed the annual estimated cost of living. These increases will have the added benefit of closing the gap between stipend levels across divisions by accelerating increases to the humanities and social sciences from $33,600 to $36,300 next year, with a similar increase in fall 2023. During this period, science stipends will also increase at an accelerated rate.

Medical Leave Hardship Fund
Beginning in Spring 2022, students needing a medical leave of absence will be able to apply for awards up to $3,000 from a new Dean’s Medical Leave Hardship Fund. As an expansion of the Dean’s Emergency Fund, the Hardship Fund will enable students to pause coursework and research to address serious medical conditions with the help of some financial support. We will also continue to fund Yale Health affiliate coverage through the end of the semester in which a medical leave of absence is initiated.

Family Subsidy Increase
The pandemic brought into sharp focus the challenges of caring for children while pursuing a graduate degree, especially when many childcare centers closed during the worst months of the crisis. To help parents pay for childcare alternatives, we joined the university to offer coverage for care through the Bright Horizons Crisis Care Assist program. This pandemic-related program is due to end in 2021. To provide ongoing help to Ph.D. students who are parents, we will increase direct-to-student funds in the family subsidy beginning in the spring 2022 semester with an additional $1,500 to the annual subsidy ($750 per semester) for a new total of $6,600 per year.

Increased Conference Travel Fellowship Funding
Based on information about usage and need provided by graduate students running the GSA Conference Travel Fellowship (CTF), we will increase the travel fund budget by $60,000 to expand resources for students to participate in conferences Combined with existing funding from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) Dean’s Office and GSAS, this brings the total budget for the CTF to $180,000 annually.

We all owe tremendous gratitude to the innumerable generous donors who have contributed to Yale’s endowment and to the outstanding stewardship of those donations across generations that make it possible for us to invest in the mission of providing a world-class education to graduate students and advancing research at Yale. I am continually inspired by the creativity and care that the Graduate School faculty and staff devote to our students. I am particularly grateful for the thoughtful leadership of the GSA, and I look forward to continued collaboration on initiatives that improve graduate education and student wellbeing at Yale.

With best wishes,
Lynn Cooley

Dean, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Vice Provost of Postdoctoral Affairs
C.N.H. Long Professor of Genetics
Professor of Cell Biology and of Molecular, Cellular & Developmental Biology