Below is an excerpt from from President Kelly’s recent email (1 NOV 2010) to the Graduate Center community, in which he provided an update on several budgetary concerns. The full text of his update can be found here, but this posted excerpt deals exclusively with student support:
“STUDENT SUPPORT. In 2001-2002, total doctoral student support, both tax-levy and philanthropic, was $14.2 million. This year that number is $44.7 million, a gain of $30.5 million in eight years. We now offer 1700 five-year recruitment packages; remit tuition for all students who teach at CUNY during their first five years of enrollment; extend low-cost NYSHIP health insurance to doctoral students who teach at CUNY (2100 and counting); and absorb the out-of-state tuition differential for Chancellor’s and Science Fellows. This from a base of zero. There’s still work to do; these gains have only leveled the playing field and competitive packages remain a moving target. But as growth in both our application and yield rates attests, we are recruiting and sustaining very strong cohorts of doctoral candidates. Eight years ago we admitted 49% of applicants and 42% of those successful candidates enrolled. Last year we admitted 33% of applicants and 54% of those candidates matriculated. Those numbers tell only a portion of the story. By all accounts, the quality of our applicant pool has increased dramatically; we are now competing with the best universities in the country for new students. To a considerable extent, our success is a function of enhanced financial aid, but the primary magnet for doctoral students remains perceived strength of faculty. And on that score, we’ve done very well indeed.”
