As if the assault on affirmative action hasn’t produced enough ominous clouds over higher education, the outlook for graduate and professional schools is becoming stormier than ever.
Federal education spending cutbacks have decimated the best-known federally funded fellowship programs for African Americans, setting off a scramble for a pot of private foundation aid that has now expanded to cover the gap caused by the federal spending cuts.
Financial woes for graduate and professional students are underscored by the record pace at which they are borrowing to meet tuition needs. Between 1993 and 1995, the annual volume of loans for grad students soared by 73 percent from $4.4 billion in 1993 to $7.7 billion in 1995. “There’s no way that the private sector can pick up the slack,” says Dr. Allison Bernstein, director of the Ford Foundation’s education program. She noted that Ford spends $5.5 million in fellowships for students. The available money ranges from as little as $15,000 to as much as $30,000.”
In light of the federal cutbacks, however, she says, the foundation is considering increasing its fellowship spending for African Americans “We think the problems (facing minority graduate and professional students) are long standing of under-representation. The fair thing to say is what can we do and, at what scale,” she explains: “The one thing we can say without equivocation is, that there is going to be more pressure on private sources of funding,” says Thomas Rozzell, director of fellowships for the National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council.
