By Vic Cox

The current draft of UCSB’s Academic Plan calls for an increase in graduate students from 13 percent of total students to 17 percent by 2025—or about 4,200 out of a student body of 25,000—a goal that would require recruiting a net average of 70 new graduate students a year. For the past three years, the graduate student population has floated between 2,850 and 3,000.

Acknowledging that UCSB is and has been “under-enrolled” in graduate students for a research university of its caliber, the draft Academic Plan says it is time to redress that imbalance. Over the last 30 years recruitment averaged 35 net graduate students a year, so a goal of doubling that number is “an achievable albeit ambitious challenge,” according to the plan.

This increase in graduate students is expected to mirror a 1 percent a year growth in the undergraduate population.

“The goal to increase the fraction of graduate students is consistent with the need for a larger number of them in the research programs of an advancing, tier one research university,” said Gene Lucas, executive vice chancellor. “It also reflects UC’s anticipated role in the trend toward higher entry level degrees expected by employers.”

Due to the importance of graduate students in teaching and research, Gale Morrison, acting dean of the Graduate Division, says that she and her “very lean office staff are excited about the potential growth, and we are working to make that goal a reality.”

A systemwide panel, the Competitive Graduate Student Financial Support Advisory Committee, led by UC San Diego Dean of Graduate Studies Richard Attiyeh, last summer concluded that UC support was “not fully competitive with peer universities.” It estimated the average stipend shortfall to be $2,000 for each graduate student admitted to a UC doctoral program.

Looking ahead, the panel said that maintaining the status quo would require $122 million. Closing the shortfall and recruiting sufficient additional graduate students (around 1,000 a year through 2010-11) would double that sum to $244 million. The report is at <http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/regmeet/july06/ 305attach2.pdf>.

With about 80 percent of UCSB’s 2,940 graduate students going for doctoral degrees in 2005-06, the campus departments are recruiting and, to a high degree, retaining the most desirable graduate students. Part of the credit goes to the additional funds former division dean Charles Li helped the Graduate Division secure over his 16-year tenure. However, competitive pressure for the best students can only increase, warns Morrison.

The competition comes from within, as well as outside, the UC system. “Various campuses have different ways of funding students,” she says, “and we have lost great students to our sister campuses.” The Foundation for UC Santa Barbara has stepped up its fund-raising efforts on behalf of graduate programs, but more is needed at UCSB, says Morrison.

Every time the graduate fees increase, “we take some significant hits in terms of our ability to recruit students to the UC system,” she explains. As part of their pay, all graduate students working as teaching assistants or research associates have their fees covered by University funds or research grants, respectively.

Other support elements for UCSB graduate students are on the horizon: In two years San Clemente’s 970-plus beds should help hold down local living costs for many graduate students. But almost as important, says Morrison, is the faculty housing on North Campus.

“The extent to which this university can keep top-notch faculty is also a part of (our success in) recruiting great graduate students,” she observes. “They’re the draw in what is very much a symbiotic system.”