If a fellow does not use all of their academic-year funds, can they use those remaining funds during the summer?
No. Academic-year funds may only be used during the academic year. Unless there are extenuating circumstances, fellows should be receiving all of the funds designated for academic years stipends. If you are having difficulty disbursing funds to fellows due to institutional bureaucracy or recently imposed restrictions, please contact your institution’s administration (e.g., Dean; Provost) and/or financial aid office prior to contacting us.
Can a fellow use their academic year funds after graduation?
No. Fellows must use their undergraduate-designated funds before they receive their bachelor’s degrees.
Can a fellow receive more than two years’ worth of academic-year stipends if funds are available?
No. Each fellow is allotted a maximum of two years of academic-year stipend money, regardless of funds available.
What is the Foundation’s policy regarding the use of fellows' academic-year stipends to satisfy the requirements of their financial aid packages?
The Foundation expects fellows to devote the academic year to academic study and research. The stipend is in place so that fellows will not have to seek work-study positions. As with summer stipends, MMUF academic-year funding may not be used toward the financial-aid package. If MMUF stipends and financial aid are an issue, please contact your institution’s administrative leadership (e.g., Dean; Provost; President) and/or financial aid office prior to contacting us. For specific questions regarding the appropriate uses of MMUF funds, please contact us directly.
My institution is attempting to tax fellows' stipends under the rationale that the stipends constitute payment from the institution to fellows for their research. Can the Foundation intervene in such cases to prevent stipends from being taxed?
Several cases like this, which appear to stem from recent and ongoing shifts in tax law, have been reported to us in the last several years. If you find yourself in this situation, please contact us so that we can provide a statement explaining the nature and purpose of fellow stipends which you can present to your institution's finance department.
What happens if a fellow participates in a summer research program which provides a separate stipend?
Fellows should receive only one stipend for a particular summer research experience. We encourage you to contact the administrators of the fellow’s summer research program to determine whether the summer stipend should come from the MMUF budget or the summer program’s budget. If the stipend ultimately comes from the research program’s budget, the fellow may submit to you a proposal and budget for a different research project in order to receive a portion of their MMUF summer stipend.
How do I prevent "double dipping" in regard to fellow stipends?
To prevent a fellow from receiving two stipends (i.e. an MMUF summer stipend and an external summer program stipend) for the same summer research experience, there are three options: (a) The fellow may submit a separate budget detailing how MMUF funds would be used; the coordinator can then determine whether to approve the request or not. (b) The coordinator may require that the fellow submit a proposal for a separate (but perhaps related) research project to work on in the summer so that the MMUF stipend could fund that project. (c) If the research program does not span the entirety of the summer, the coordinator may prorate the stipend for the remainder of the summer. That is, if the research program spans June and July, you may provide MMUF funds for the month of August.
If a fellow does not use their allotted summer funds, can they use those funds during the academic year?
No. Summer funds may only be used during the summer term.
Can a fellow use their summer funds after graduation?
For those in traditional programs that offer fellows two summers' worth of funding before graduation (i.e. the summers before the junior and senior years of study), these fellows should use all undergraduate-designated funds before they receive their bachelor’s degrees.
Can a fellow receive more than two years' worth of summer funding?
No. Each fellow is allotted a maximum of two years of summer stipend money, regardless of the overall program funds that may be available.
What is the Foundation’s policy regarding the use of fellows’ stipends to satisfy the requirements of their financial aid packages?
The Foundation expects fellows to devote up to two summers to academic study and research. To participate as an MMUF institution, school’s leadership agreed that MMUF stipends would not be considered part of a fellow’s financial aid package or reduce the fellow’s financial aid. MMUF summer funding should not go toward the summer earnings portion of the standard financial-aid package. If there is an issue of MMUF stipends and summer financial aid, please contact your institution’s administration (e.g., Dean; Provost) and/or financial aid office prior to contacting us. For more specific questions regarding appropriate uses of MMUF summer funds, please contact us directly.
Can a fellow studying a foreign language use their entire summer stipend amount toward such study?
Yes. If the language is crucial to the fellow’s research, the full stipend may be used toward language study in a structured academic program.
What kind of summer travel is permissible?
A portion of a fellow’s summer stipend can be used to support travel (domestic or international) to attend conferences, visit graduate schools, or attend a discipline-appropriate, research-based program or institution. Use of funds for travel does not apply to fellows who are traveling with the ultimate purpose of spending an academic semester/year abroad. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to discuss a specific case.
Is there a list of Mellon-approved summer programs?
Yes. The University of Chicago annually hosts the nine-week Summer Research Training Program for MMUF fellows, and UCLA hosts the six-week Writing and Research Training Program. Several MMUF institutions host their own official summer programs, including Barnard, Bowdoin, Columbia, Hunter, Wesleyan, Williams, the UNCF consortium/Emory University, the summer research opportunity programs at the University of California at Berkeley and Northwestern, and the Summer Humanities Institute at UCLA.
Other research-based programs with histories of successful MMUF participation include AALCI (the University of Texas at San Antonio), Institute for Recruitment of Teachers (Phillips Academy), the Leadership Alliance (Consortium), MURAP (the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), SILCS (Wheaton College), and SURF (the University of California at Irvine), among others; please see the Summer Programs page for more information. If you have a question concerning the suitability of other programs, please contact us.
How do fellows become eligible for the events and grants that the SSRC and the Institute for Citizens & Scholars administer for MMUF graduate students?
The SSRC and the IC&S are simultaneously notified whenever fellows submit annual update forms at the "Enrolled in a PhD Program" status to the Mellon Foundation, and thus receive current contact information for fellows who are newly eligible for their events and grants. (Please note that the SSRC and the IC&S currently cannot capture information from updates submitted by seniors who have been accepted into PhD programs but submit updates as current undergraduates; please encourage fellows in these circumstances to report themselves as PhD-enrolled as soon as they have received graduate school acceptances, even if they have not yet chosen a program.)
The SSRC and the IC&S then use these records to contact fellows who are eligible for a given graduate initiative to invite their participation in events and their applications for grants. To ensure that this system functions as effectively as possible, we urge coordinators to remind fellows of SSRC and the IC&S programming during their exit interviews and emphasize the importance of keeping their contact information current by continuing to submit their MMUF annual update forms once per academic year after graduation.
Participation in SSRC and the IC&S programming is only available to those students entering PhD programs within 39 months of graduating from college. Students entering PhD programs in eligible fields after being out of college longer than 39 months may petition Mellon staff to be considered for continuing benefits on a case-by-case basis.
What type of loans qualify for repayment?
Loan repayment is only available to those students entering PhD programs within 39 months of graduating from college. Students entering PhD programs in eligible fields after being out of college longer than 39 months may write to Renee Johnson-Thornton (rjt@mellon.org) to be considered for continuing benefits on a case-by-case basis.
Only educational debts accrued through Stafford, Perkins, or other college loan programs qualify for repayment. The MMUF program will not repay private bank loans or personal loans. We tend not to make distinctions for consolidated or refinanced loans. If a fellow has less than $10,000 worth of undergraduate loans, he/she may receive the remainder of allocated loan repayment funds as payments on graduate loans.
Are master’s degree program loans ever eligible for repayment?
Normally, fellows must be enrolled in PhD programs to be eligible for loan repayment: terminal M.A. degrees do not qualify. However, fellows who complete MFA degrees that are research-based (not performance-based) in nature may be eligible for undergraduate loan repayments of up to $5,000 at the Foundation’s discretion. These funds can only be paid out upon completion of the MFA degree. Please notify us of all potential MFA loan repayment cases prior to granting a repayment.
My institution is attempting to tax fellows' loan repayment monies under the rationale that these funds constitute payment from the institution to fellows. Can the Foundation intervene in such cases to prevent loan repayment funds from being taxed?
Several cases like this, which appear to stem from recent and ongoing shifts in tax law, have been reported to us in the last several years. If you find yourself in this situation, please contact us so that we can provide a statement explaining the nature and purpose of the loan repayment benefit which you can present to your institution's finance department.
Can fellows who are not planning to apply to graduate school until after their college graduations still use their designated GRE preparation funds after graduating?
No. The GRE funds, like the other MMUF monies designated for undergraduate fellows, are intended to provide strategic and timely support to fellows during their undergraduate careers, rather than retroactive support after they have graduated. While fellows do not necessarily need to apply to graduate school before they graduate, their preparation funds must be used prior to graduating.
Can fellows use their GRE prep funds to cover the costs of sending their GRE scores to graduate schools?
Yes. Although these funds are primarily intended to help fellows prepare for the test itself, we also consider defraying GRE-associated costs such as sending fees to be a legitimate use of the funds.
