132 SCIENTIST 



done while serving as a paid research assistant provides a 

 useful training experience. Frequently it contributes to 

 meeting the thesis requirement. All these government sub- 

 ventions are in addition to the traditional support from 

 private individuals and corporations. Corporate giving to 

 universities is in fact increasing rapidly as more and more 

 businesses recognize the economic importance of scientific 

 research. 



The result of all this is that just about anyone who 

 needs it can get financial help for graduate studies in the 

 natural sciences. The level of support varies somewhat 

 with the ability of the student and with certain other cir- 

 cumstances, but no one intellectually and morally capable 

 of graduate work, in science at least, should abandon the 

 prospect because of fears about meeting his need for bed, 

 board, and tuition. His standard of living may not immedi- 

 ately be quite that of some of his college classmates, but 

 he will very probably do as well or better than most of 

 them in the longer run. In any case, he will enjoy approxi- 

 mately equal conditions with those of the other graduates 

 with whom he is Uving. Everyone will have much the same 

 sort of apartment and the same sort of doubtfully reliable 

 secondhand car. Social occasions will be informal and 

 inexpensive. No one will expect steak and champagne 

 except perhaps to celebrate the passing of general exami- 

 nations or the completion of a thesis. Furniture is likely to 

 be handed down from earlier generations of graduate stu- 

 dents who will have found it too expensive and cumber- 

 some to take with them when they drove off to take their 

 first job. The point is that the life of the graduate student 

 lies pretty much outside the status struggle which is said 

 to be characteristic of many other kinds of life in America. 

 If graduate students are judged at all by their colleagues, 



