Yay, its definitely extramural money and both the fellowship and the institution allows for it but boss says no.  I mean don't you want to reward folks for going out and securing funding for themselves.

I would say cheap as well... UNLESS, he is using the freed up money for a new student. If that money is in the salary category and there is not much additional money in that category, using 20% for your friend might mean that he can't bring in another student because he only would have 80% of a stipend. In this case, it works against the lab to reward the student who gets the external $$. I'm not saying that is right, but it may be the reality.

I hadn't thought about that PLS. That's a really good point.

Ajax's institution does not require any teaching commitment so he, like I is nothing but a labrat.

Is an extra 2-3k going to really push your already pretty well established lab over the top?  To me by even giving him a minimal pittance over the stipend you are sending a message to your other students:  Get your own money, not only does it look good on your CV but I will reward you with some extra money.  And also Ajax gets a couple of grand a year from the fellowship for consumables and travel funds too, so the lab is already getting extra money to get better equipment.

2-3K is a month maintananence fee for a mouse colony, it is the cost of 2.5 months of tubes and tips, it is the usage fee for the shared thingum-a-jig in the common room that everyone needs for the last step of their experiment...every penny counts in a profession where you are not guaranteed the next big paycheck.  A good PI will seriously consider that.  If you want to send a good message to the rest of the troops then through Ajax a little party, open up a $40 dollar bottle of champagne.

Cheap bastard to not shuffle any of the funds his way.

I think it's ok for a PI to either

1) not raise the guys stipend, but earmark the funds his fellowship brought in for any extra specially nice reagents/supplies/technical assistance that can be purchased to expediate his project. This guy should be getting precast gels and premade buffers, and possibly a work-study undergrad minion to help in the summer.

or

2) splitting the 'extra' money- half to the guy's stipend and half to the lab. It's about the same overhead rate many institutions charge, right?

In the absense of either plan, the incentive structure gets screwed up. Applying for fellowships takes TIME. This guy has basically DONATED extra time- in theory, he would have graduated that much faster if he hadn't bothered with the F31. In reality, of course, we know what will happen instead- he will probably do more science, and better science and graduate in the same amount of time. The PI benefits from any work he does beyond what is necessary to get the postdoc he wants. So the student should see *some* kind of benefit from it, besides the nice CV line.

@PLS- I agree, in general as far as my personal philosophy about lab funding goes. I'd rather take a 20% salary hit then see someone fired. Would you?

The thing is, from the perspective of the interests of the student, one more student in the lab means that much less time from the PI, that many fewer reagents, and one extra PhD to compete with for postdocs in the long run. In other words, from the perspective of existing PhD students, *more* PhD students is a serious threat, not a benefit (barring, of course, considerations like the colleageality and extra progress you can make with a *good* grad student in your lab; but unless Ajax gets to *choose* the student, it's not a fair assumption that he will benefit from the PI using that funding for a salary)

@Brian- T32s are an entirely different matter. In most institutions, the tremendous amount of extra effort the PIs put forth on putting in training grants are not well-rewarded (i.e. they take way more time than the funding they are worth- unless they get 'credit' for research *and* teaching out of it, there's a powerful DISincentive for PIs to work on them). Yes, they tend to put the good students on the training grant, but in all likelihood the role you, specifically, as an individual getting funded under one played in actually helping the institution get the grant is negligible. Whereas an F31 is money that *would not be there* if not for Ajax, specifically, and the work he is doing. At least in theory.

1) The PI is a cheap bastard.

2) Ajax deserves an increased stipend and a party.

Ajax asked and was flatly denied.

No real justification he pretty much just said that "you have made this stipend why would you need anymore money?"

When I was a postdoc on a T32 for a couple years, the T32 stated that the postdocs would get raises every year.  Well, I didn't, because the PI was cheap.  HOWEVER - I quit the postdoc early because it was just not meeting my needs at that point in my career (I was ready to have a little help getting my own funding and preparing to start my own lab, but the professor didn't want to be a real advisor, so I left).  Anyway, a few months after I left, the NIH audited the PI and the T32, discovered that even though he'd said in the grant that we'd get raises each year he did not give them to us, and forced him to send me my $4000 even though I didn't work there any more because it had been promised to me in writing.  TAKE THAT, you a-hole....

@Becca My point was that sometimes money is tied up for salary and taking 20% out of that pot might make the rest less useful. Even if the grad school covers the first year, that is only one year. I don't disagree that I would do anything I could to reward that lab member for getting their own money. In fact, I have done that in my own lab. However, their may be constraints that are not visible to students. Certainly, those should be communicated so as to avoid alienating good students and conversations like this.

On the subject of the grad student seeing others as a threat, sorry, but get over yourself. Yes, there are labs that collect students like cord wood, but in most places the addition of an extra student can make a big positive difference in a lot of ways. If you are going to start viewing your peers as threats, I see that as a very dangerous attitude.

When Ajax was denied was there any reason given that would give insight into why the PI is being so tight?

It doesn't really excuse saying "no" when the funds are available and the situation warrants a raise, but if the PI is seeing something down the line, that could explain things.  It may not be  great explanation, but I've always been more upset with a flat "no" than a "no" with some sort of adequate reasoning behind it.

Genomic RepairMom chimed in with an email to me that asked if Ajax's PI was my father because, "he is the cheapest motherfucker in the world.  He'd bitch it wasn't enough if you could even squeeze water from a stone."

Becca your statement of  "I think the *typical* development pathway for a PI is with the skillset of *attracting* N people to the lab coming before the skillset of *managing* N people in the lab" is spot on.

PIs do need to acquire the skillsets to manage a large group.  It is not easy and you get little training in the early part of your career.

Yes!  Does that mean that you don't get the points!

Nice try though Will!

You're putting up a damn good fight! May the best woman win!

It ain't over til the fat lady (who's been drinking too many fizzy drinks) sings!

Students in my grad program all get the same stipend, regardless of fellowship status. However the university does award a small bonus as an incentive to write good fellowships.

I'm with Will and Janede. It's a tough call. One issue is where does the money come from. Similar to the postdoc salary situation we discussed recently, there are restrictions on how a F31-funded trainee's stipend can be supplemented. Even if the PI is well-funded, if it's all federal funds, his hands are kind of tied. So, Brian, even if the PI has $20K left on a grant at the end of the year, the limitations on supplementation of F31 (and F32, K01, etc.) stipend, as far as I can tell, bar the use of that 'extra money' to give Ajax a raise.

That being said, when I was awarded an F31, my department supplemented my stipend to bring it to the same level as other grad students, since they were paying slightly above the NIH payscale. Also my stipend was initially boosted by the institutional fellowships/"topping out" awards. When those ran out after my 4th year, I brought it up with my PI, and he designated some slush funds to bring my pay up close to where it had been at the start.

If Ajax's PI doesn't have 'discretionary' funds from an internal or non-federal source to spare (e.g. he doesn't have any or has them but they're committed to something else), then he could at least be honest about it. From the PI's response, it does sound like he really is just being a cheap bastard.

Then I would say the PI is definitely just being a cheap bastard.

Dude, you needed to include this into the original article!

I think it's definitely difficult for PI's, more difficult that students/postdocs etc give them credit for as pointed out by a number of posts, but given what GR revealed, I would definitely say we can conclude in this case he's a cheap bastard! I agree that you should add that into the original post.

I think the PI is cheap, excluding the caveats listed above.

But can we think about one other issue with supplentation: what about grad students that are INELIGIBLE for grants (training or NRSAs or NSF etc), such as international students? Doesn't supplementing student's salaries on the basis of getting a grant means disadvantaging students who are already at a disadvantage for not being able to apply for funding?

Where possible, the grad student stipend should be supplemented, but equal treatment of students in the lab bears thinking about too.