The frustrating realities of the graduate school funding process (2024)

Before arriving in Berkeley, the weekend prior to the first day of classes, I was unsure of whether I would be coming to begin my graduate degree at all.

On the day that tuition was due, I was panicked, wondering if I would be able to receive my fellowship funding before I was faced with late fees and registration holds. My parents, alarmed and frustrated, opined that I should consider canceling my Oakland-bound flight the following morning. After all, without the funding package that I had learned I would receive when I committed to my M.A. program back in May, UC Berkeley was not realistically affordable for me and my family. I was distraught, convinced that I had erred in the disbursement process and that I was responsible for my graduate education going up in smoke before my eyes.

Much to my relief, an eleventh-hour conversation with an advisor allowed me to learn that my standing as a graduate student offered me some grace: rather than having to pay tuition and fees the Friday prior to the start of classes, I was able to avoid consequences for any late payments until mid-September. With that, I was able to proceed with my move across the country as planned, and, sure enough, I bore no undue financial burden when my funding finally disbursed soon after the first day of classes.

In hindsight, however, I wonder how preventable my panic would have been if I were better informed of the ins and outs of the graduate student funding process. A simple note from an advisor informing me that I need not worry about my funding being applied later than the undergraduate deadline for tuition payments would have sufficed. But on an institutional level, UC Berkeley’s webpages regarding student finances, including those published by the Graduate Division, also display remarkably little information regarding the more unique circumstances that affect graduate students. I had to dig deep to find any details that corroborated those shared with me by my advisor.

This goes to show that the university chooses to treat me and all other graduate students — regardless of our backgrounds — as though we are fully aware of the fact that graduate students are often able to submit payments following deadlines. While this would have been acceptable if I were a more experienced graduate student, as I have just entered graduate school for the first time, this information took me by surprise.

For all the hassle I went through, this poor communication has ramifications that extend far beyond my own experiences. I came to UC Berkeley with the benefit of having supportive parents and mentors as well as a degree of financial security that gave me some peace of mind as I waited for my funding packages to disburse. If I did not have access to such privileges, what I felt to be inconvenient would have been outright disastrous. Thus, for first-generation and economically disadvantaged students, concern about whether funding will be received on time and extraneous fees will be avoided is especially paramount. The prospect of losing funding was horrifying enough for a student like myself, so I can only imagine how the sort of confusion over finances like I faced might impact other students for whom postgraduate education is largely unaffordable. Miscommunications like these could even result in students needlessly withdrawing from their degree programs. Administrators at UC Berkeley, particularly those in the Graduate Division, owe it to graduate students to make information about funding and payment deadlines much more accessible.

But even for graduate students with more experience navigating the funding process, the lack of urgency in the university’s bureaucracy also causes problems and exacerbates existing anxieties. To be clear, this is not an issue exclusive to UC Berkeley — some of my peers at other universities have told me about similar experiences with delayed funding or fellowships that they had difficulty cashing out. But regardless, a university of this caliber should be capable of streamlining the process of disbursing funding.

Though I understand that headaches arise primarily from the fact that many graduate students’ tuition and fees are paid off by packages that are granted at different times by different institutions, waiting for weeks or even months to be sure that funding is being properly applied is highly inconvenient. Personally, I am still waiting to receive the last few hundred dollars of my funding package — in the month of October, no less — and as a result, I haven’t been able to pay off my tuition. Graduate students are already being allocated stipends that are hardly enough to cover the cost of living in the Bay Area, and the reality that many students are forced to wait for what is usually their source of financial security is unacceptable.

Among these students left struggling are visionaries in the natural sciences, brilliant scholars in the humanities and cutting-edge innovators in engineering who ensure UC Berkeley remains one of the most prestigious and productive universities in the world. For their sake — and for the sake of this university’s reputation — our administrators must do better.