Substantial funding increase to benefit science and engineering graduate students

Yale College announced new investments to support expanded class sizes at Yale College, with plans to admit 100 more students annually for a total class size of 1650 each year. This announcement of a larger Yale College class size benefits the entire university, particularly graduate students. As Provost Scott Strobel and Dean Pericles Lewis wrote in their announcement:

"The university will commit additional resources to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. These resources will help offset the cost of supporting graduate students, an expense often borne by individual faculty members’ research grants. Sustaining a robust graduate student community is crucial to the university’s education and research missions and to a thriving Yale College."

Dean Lynn Cooley provided further details on the benefits graduate students, particularly in science and engineering, will see from the increased class size. Starting in Fall 2025, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences will provide stipend supplements on federal fellowships paid to graduate students to cover the difference between the federal fellowship amount and Yale’s stipend levels. The tuition matching program or tuition paid from faculty research grants will be increased from 35% to 50%. New University Fellowships (UFs) will also be distributed to science and engineering programs to allow more flexibility in student funding. 

Yale Schools of Medicine and Public Health made parallel announcements of stipend supplements for graduate students and tuition matching to 50% starting this fall. Dean Nancy Brown, the Jean and David W. Wallace Dean of Medicine, highlighted the reduced financial burden on investigators and departments to sustain the rigorous training programs. 

“Graduate students working in partnership with faculty help drive the research and teaching missions of the university,” Dean Cooley wrote in her email announcement to GSAS faculty. These initiatives will support the dynamic research of graduate students in science and engineering while alleviating faculty costs. Through this significant boost in funding, all members of the Yale community will be supported in their vital and innovative work. 

Written by C.R. Davis