I saw a tweet (retweeted by @ungaggedEPA) that said, “I work in the Environmental Engineering department of Colorado University. This week all the graduate students that are on EPA fellowships received notification that their funding was being cut off and they should not expect any future funding. Imagine being halfway through your PhD and having your financial rug pulled out from under you.”
They call it Colorado University?
I was seeing conflicting reports, a freeze? Or a cutoff? Then I see it’s lifted. Can’t make the link copy.
I don’t think there is a “Colorado University”. That said, I have a kid applying to grad schools in a field that gets a fair amount of funding from the Dept of Energy. She is asking questions at the schools about what their sources of funding are, for sure.
I googled the person whose name was shown in the tweeted screen capture of a FB post, and she is a real person at CU Boulder (aka University of Colorado Boulder).
I’d guess that DoE research funding would be more safe than EPA funding, and less safe than DARPA/Navy/etc funding. (Now that they learned the main mission of the DoE, that is.) Federal arts funding is probably a goner. Not sure about NIH, Dept of Ag, etc.
I can’t find anything about this on the net. That said, fluctuations in federal funding are pretty standard regardless of who gets elected president - programs expand and contract as the new administration defines their agenda and priorities. There are lots of issues that graduate students might not realize are actually tied to executive branch duties and plans.
“EPA Fellowships.” That’s the EPA monies to PhDs. As I saw it, the freeze was lifted.
I have a fellowship from the department of energy, and this summer we were told that the money is already in their accounts, so the funding can’t be cut or taken away. I’m hoping that’s still true, but after the last week it feels like everything is up in the air now.
Nano, fwiw, that’s what my friend in DoE also said. The question is, all of it, covering the x years you were offered funding? Or are those deposits incremental? And, if there’s some plug in the pipeline, is your school/dept in a position to do some make up of its own?
@lookingforward - the funding was under threat a few years ago, at which time the funding was incremental (e.g., each year they got the money in the budget for the next year of funding). When they went to bat to keep the scholarship, they also got it restructured so that the money for the full 4 years is in their accounts when they issue the award. Apparently. If I do end up without funding, my advisor is well-funded and I should hopefully be OK.