Like a sports coach, Dwight A. McBride studies his “win-loss data.” As the dean of Northwestern University’s graduate school, he closely tracks his wins, when a graduate student with competing offers chooses his institution, and his losses, when that student goes somewhere else.
Mr. McBride and other university officials want more wins.
Northwestern announced last week that it planned to increase its minimum graduate stipend 26 percent, to $29,000 a year, a move meant to make it more attractive to graduate students and more competitive with Duke University, Stanford University, the University of Chicago, and other institutions it views as peers.
Universities, especially wealthier ones, have increased their minimum stipends in recent years to remain competitive, but a one-time increase the size of Northwestern’s is rare.
What’s more, when a university does offer a sizable increase, it sometimes comes with trade-offs for graduate students, such as fewer guaranteed years of funding or a plan to reduce the number of Ph.D. candidates. In Northwestern’s case, the new stipend minimum does not come with such restrictions.
The increase, which starts on September 1, will apply to the university’s Ph.D. and M.F.A. students. Last fall 3,131 such students were enrolled at Northwestern. Mr. McBride said most students would see a pay increase, though he wasn’t sure how many in all.
The university said the change would help recruit students primarily in the social and behavioral sciences, the arts, and the humanities. Students in other disciplines, like engineering and life sciences, were already receiving higher stipends. Mr. McBride said Northwestern had risen in recent decades from a strong regional institution to an international research university, and was now in a better position to compete for the best graduate students.
Like many universities, Northwestern often offers to increase stipends for promising students who are considering other programs. But negotiating those increases can be a time-consuming hassle. Data show that the new stipend would have eliminated 80 percent of such negotiations last year, Mr. McBride said.
“Ultimately, we want students to decide the best fit for their research, the best fit for them intellectually, and the best place they feel will prepare them for the careers they are pursuing,” he said. “We don’t want the financial piece to be the reason they’re not coming to Northwestern.”
Financial support for doctoral students can be a touchy subject on campuses. Many students, especially in the humanities, complain that stipends are inadequate and that they must go into debt or work outside jobs to make ends meet. That often means they have less time to attend conferences, write papers, or polish their dissertations. Ultimately, they say, such constraints could hurt them on the academic-job market.
At Northwestern graduate-student leaders have been pressing for stipend increases for years, saying the usual 2- or 3-percent annual bumps were not keeping pace with their peers or with the cost of living in the Chicago area.
Although Arielle W. Tolman, a sociology Ph.D. student at Northwestern, had competing offers that were considerably larger, she chose the university because it was the best fit for her. Yet her decision had costs. Ms. Tolman and her partner, she said, “are getting up there in age” but still live with a roommate.
For her, next year’s stipend increase will mean roughly an extra $500 a month and a roommate-less future. For others, she said, it will mean being able to live closer to the campus and having the financial peace of mind that will allow for a more-fruitful graduate-student career.
Though pleasantly surprised by the large increase, Ms. Tolman said she wondered why it had not occurred sooner. “It’s sort of shocking, given Northwestern’s endowment,” she said of the fund, which now tops $10 billion.
Daniel I. Linzer, the university’s provost, said much of the endowment was restricted for specific purposes designated by donors.
He said the stipend increase would cost $6.25 million a year and had been made possible in part by recent increases in Northwestern’s endowment. The fund has grown from about $6 billion in 2010 thanks to gifts and a stock-market boom since the end of the Great Recession.
Vimal Patel covers graduate education. Follow him on Twitter @vimalpatel232, or write to him at vimal.patel@chronicle.com.
