Spring 2005
What's at Stake
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"The idea that good may be good enough is anathema to anyone who is involved in this enterprise. ‘Good is good enough’ translates into a kind of complacency that is a death knell for greatness."

— Ian Krouse

Samueli: Similarly, raising fees for graduate students without providing adequate financial support dampens their interest in UC campuses. If UC campuses can’t offer scholarships and other financial incentives to attract the best graduate students, who are critical contributors to academic research and, ultimately, the work force, they will go to universities in other states, and those states will accrue the benefits of their research. The net effect is a reduction in research that is so critical to California’s economic health.

Garrett: I think that if you asked the academic leadership on campus what they think the thin end of the wedge is with respect to the competitiveness gap, they would say it is worrying about losing some of the best faculty and not being competitive for the best graduate students. On the graduate student side, I know, having come to UCLA from a private university, that all the leading private institutions in the country now guarantee full funding for Ph.D. students for four or five years. That’s the national best practice. It has been estimated that only 20 percent of UCLA’s graduate students have guaranteed funding packages beyond one year.

Boyer: It is important to recognize, at least in the life sciences, that what is needed is not more graduate students — there are already more Ph.D.s than there are opportunities for them — but higher-quality graduate students. We’re not getting the best graduate students coming now. If we have additional funds, they should be directed at getting high-quality graduate students to come to UCLA.

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