How are these benefits funded?
The Childbirth Accommodation (CBA) Fund administered by OGE pays for tuition and stipend expenses related to the two months of paid leave for graduate students who give birth (birth parents) and are a Research or Teaching Assistant. The fund was set up in 2004 by the Dean’s Group for the purpose of supporting graduate student women who have RA/TA assignments to take up to eight weeks of maternity leave without putting an undue financial burden on individual departments.
Responsibility for funding the approved Parental Leave resides at the level of the academic department unless otherwise instructed by the respective School Dean’s Office. The five schools have different policies. Currently, the School of Science and the Sloan School are funding the Parental Leave benefit centrally from their respective Dean’s Office. The School of Architecture + Planning, School of Engineering, School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences expect the student’s academic department to bear the expenses, except in cases of demonstrated financial hardship.
Fellowships from sources internal to MIT are not interrupted during a Childbirth Accommodation or Parental Leave period, and will be paid from their original source. Students who are supported by fellowships from sources external to MIT are subject to rules and regulations of the granting agency with respect to leaves from academic and research work. The Director of Graduate Fellowships in the OGE can assist in discussions with fellowship providers. If the organization providing the fellowship requires suspension of fellowship benefits during the leave period, and appropriate documentation is provided by the student, the student will be eligible for substitute payment at the existing level of support. In the case of a substitute payment for Childbirth Accommodation, all elements of the financial award will be paid from the Childbirth Accommodation Fund. For Parental Leave, responsibility for funding resides at the level of the academic department unless otherwise instructed by the respective School Dean’s Office.
To learn more about how the CBA Fund operates, please email your questions to grad-ed@mit.edu.
To learn how the funding of the Parental Leave benefit is being handled in your School, please contact your department’s administrative officer and/or academic administrator directly.
