funding promises and misinformation

[boffin218]

Hi All,

Here goes. I'm a graduate student in Pennsylvania who has a question about whether I have grounds for action. The situation is fairly simple. On entering grad school I received an award of five years of funding. The letter promises university funding for 3 years and then states "during your fourth and fifth years, you will be eligible for funding from a combination of external grants, departmental funds, or university fellowships, depending on availability."

Which is fine, except that I received an 'outside source' of funding that is administered by a member of our department, and accepted on the condition - set out in an email by him describing that funding - that stated "you
could, if you wished, accept [this] money next year and save your final
[university] installment."

After receiving the funding I had mentioned my funding status to a number of other departmental officials, including the chairman of the department, and said "which is nice because it will allow me to hold onto an extra year of university funding." None of the officials/conversants replied otherwise.

I have just (literally this hour) learned that the university wants to count the external funding as my fifth year and cut me off completely.


My question: do I have any grounds for action at all?

 

[Dandy Don]

Are you going to be able to continue your education without hardship??

Unfortunately, it does not look as if you have grounds for action, since the terminology that the university used gets them off the hook. They only promised you the vague term of "eligibility", which as you have discovered can easily be taken away if the situation warrants it.

Do you have any grounds within the university to appeal that decision?

 

[boffin218]

Thanks for your input, Don.

The short answer is no, this will invariably involve hardship on my part.

The thing of it is that there doesn't seem to be any 'decision' to appeal. It is one of those cases in which the 'eligibility' actually refers to the type of funding, not the duration (5 years was guaranteed), and it seems administrative fiat that the specific funding I had last year is counted against me. Especially in light of the fact that I have in writing a guarantee ('you can hold over your last years of funding') from the administrator saying that it wouldn't count against my guaranteed funding.