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New Rackham Policy on Expanded Cost Sharing for Graduate Fellowships and Awards

Posted Tuesday, September 29th, 2009

The Rackham Graduate School is pleased to announce a newly expanded policy on cost sharing for graduate fellowships and awards.

Graduate students are strongly encouraged to seek funding from sources external to the University of Michigan. Cost sharing acts as an incentive for graduate students and program faculty to do so and supports the ability of students to complete their programs of study. Rackham partners with graduate programs to provide cost sharing to ensure that students who compete successfully for selected external awards are better off than would be the case without the external award.

Rackham provides cost sharing in several categories. The details of stipend, tuition, GradCare, dental insurance and/or summer support coverage differ for each category depending on the specifics of the support offered by the external award and are available on the Rackham Graduate School cost sharing website. In almost all cases, cost sharing is arranged by having the graduate chair or graduate coordinator contact Rackham on the student's behalf. Students should notify their programs when they have received an external award, so the faculty and staff can work with Rackham to provide the best possible package.

The Rackham Graduate School staff who work on cost sharing are:

  1. For U.S. federal grants such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) training grants, Department of Education (DoE) Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need (GAANN), DoE Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) program, National Science Foundation (NSF) Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) grants, Assistant Dean John Godfrey (jgodfrey@umich.edu; 764-8221).
  2. For selected competitive and prestigious external fellowships awarded directly to individual students (See a list of eligible fellowships at the Rackham Graduate School website), Fellowships Office staff (flwships@umich.edu; 764-8119).
  3. For external fellowships awarded directly to students who are currently supported by another Rackham fellowship, such as a Rackham Merit Fellowship (RMF, REA, RSA, PIBS-RMF, RESA) or Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship, Assistant Dean Shelly Martinez (shellyah@umich.edu; 764-8116).