A Study On The Federal Government Graduate Student Funding Policy

With the trend and accelerated process of economic globalization, the competition of comprehensive national strength is reflected in the competition of economic, knowledge and technological strength, which eventually is based on the construction of the national innovation system. Postgraduate education is the major part and the driving force of the national innovation system, and is a key factor for its success or failure. The issue of financial assistance is an important part of postgraduate education system, which plays an irreplaceable role in improving the fairness of postgraduate education, encouraging outstanding graduate students to maximize their potential creativity and promoting the healthy development of postgraduate education. As the most developed country in the world on higher education, the United States'postgraduate education has been in the top international level. The U.S. federal government has attached considerable importance to postgraduate assistantance in the past half century. In order to promote economic revitalization, enhance national security and defense and improve its international influence, the federal government published a series of policies and regulations that guided postgraduate assitance. It is due to the subsidy policy that the United States gradually formed a relatively complete postgraduate funding system. This paper,through a comprehensive and systematic study on graduate student funding policy of the U.S. federal government, hopes to inspire the reform of China's postgraduate funding policy and practice.Firstly, the study analyzes the mental sources and practical causes of graduate student funding policy of the U.S. federal government. The pursuit of fairness and justice in American culture, human capital theory, cost-sharing theory and so on, are the mental sources of postgraduate assistance policies of the U.S. federal government, while enhancing national competitiveness, coping with tuition increases in the university financial crisis and improving the quality of postgraduate education are the realistic motivation of the U.S. federal government.In addition, the study poses detailed analysis of graduate student funding policy of the U.S. federal government. Vertically, using the method of historical research, the study is based on a series of major events of the federal government graduate assistance. The institutionalization process of the U.S. federal government graduate assistantance policy is divided into early and scattered non-formal stage, fund systematic stage,funding system growing stage, adjustment stage in the "911" and financial crisis, which indicate formation process and influencing factors of the graduate assistantance policy of the U.S. federal government. Horizontally, the study selects the National Defense Education Act, the Higher Education Act, Reshaping the Postgraduate Education of Scientists and Engineers, and the US Competition Law, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the Road ahead:the Future of Postgraduate Education, which are a series of policies that have an important impact on postgraduate assistantance. The study provides a comparative analysis of the policy background, main content about postgraduate funding and effectiveness of the implementation.On this basis, the study analyses the status of the implementation of the U.S. federal government funding policy. Under the guidance of the federal funding policy, scale of funding is rising. Funding sources are diversified, so the funding for scientific research and postgraduate scholarships provided by the federal government shows the characteristics of multi-agency participation and competition. Funding forms are diversified. Funding qutos and the main forms of subsidy vary across different disciplines and different fields of postgraduates. Fund management has been integrated, which has gradually formed a multi-dimensional, efficient graduate student financial aid system.Finally, the study sums up the characteristics of the Graduate Funding Policy in the United States:rewarding excellence, promoting fair-oriented funding, a complete system, advancing with the policies and regulations, diverse types and covering a wide range of funded projects, normative management, efficient and ordered mode of operation, focus on the key point, reflecting the differences in the allocation of funds, clear responsibility and effective supervision system. Taking the status quo of graduate student funding system in China into consideration, where comparable policy is relatively backward, funding strength,scope and sources limited and funding. The study eventually put forwards suggestions for China's postgradua te funding policy reform.