Yale and Mexico's National Council of Science and Technology Announce Agreement on Aid for Mexican Graduate Students

Mexico City-CONACYT Director General Jaime Parada and Yale University President Richard C. Levin have signed a Letter of Intent that creates the most generous scholarship program that CONACYT has ever forged with a U.S. university for Mexican students pursuing doctoral studies at Yale.

“Yale University has offered a new level of support for Mexican students pursuing graduate education at one of the world’s outstanding universities,” said Parada. “We welcome this new stage of cooperation and the opportunity to strengthen our ties, because we share a common interest of improving productivity through education.”

The Letter of Intent states that students from Mexico accepted into any of Yale’s doctoral programs will receive from Yale a generous financial aid package that covers the full cost of tuition and provides annual stipends of $15,000 and free comprehensive medical care. In addition, qualifying students will receive funding for summer research from Yale during their first two years. CONACYT will provide each student the opportunity to secure an additional loan of $5,000 every year. The loans will be forgiven if a student returns to Mexico to work in science and technology.

“Today, more than 30 percent of Yale’s graduate students come from outside the United States,” Levin said. “This agreement with CONACYT affirms Yale’s commitment to becoming a global university and strengthens our existing ties with Mexico. Yale accepted 12 graduate students from Mexico this spring and this new agreement will ensure that the numbers of students from Mexico at Yale will grow.”

CONACYT (Consejo Nacioanl de Ciencia y Tecnologica) is Mexico’s National Council of Science and Technology. CONACYT’s mission is to strengthen scientific development and to guide the technological modernization of Mexico. It is also Mexico’s foremost agency supporting graduate education and research.

As one of the world’s top universities, Yale has a long relationship with Mexico. Students and scholars from Mexico have come to Yale for more than 130 years to pursue a wide range of undergraduate and graduate studies. In the last decade alone, students from Mexico pursued studies in 16 fields ranging from economics and engineering to environmental and biomedical sciences. The new agreement replaces a 1992 CONACYT-Yale University Fellowship that evenly divided the tuition and medical fees for graduate students from Mexico between CONACYT and Yale University.

Former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo is a graduate of Yale, and Yale alumni from Mexico include distinguished scientists, cabinet ministers and central bank governors.

In addition to providing generous financial aid to doctoral candidates from abroad, Yale has made international undergraduate students eligible for the same extensive need-based financial aid available to students from the United States.

The agreement was forged during a visit by Levin and other Yale officials to Mexico to strengthen existing ties with Mexico and establish new ones. Information about the visit is available online at www.yale.edu/opa/news/latin_america/news.html

The text of the Letter of Intent between Yale and CONACYT follows.

LETTER OF INTENT

This letter of intent follows conversations between the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologia (CONACYT) of the Government of Mexico and Graduate School of Yale University (YALE) concerning a jointly-funded graduate fellowship program for Mexican students at Yale (the PROGRAM). This agreement builds on the 1992 Letter of Intent executed between CONACYT and YALE which supported a number of Mexican Graduate students’ study at YALE in the mid-1990’s. As part of YALE’s Tercentennial goals of furthering the internationalization of the university and as part of CONACYT’S continuing interest in supporting the most able Mexican students to pursue Ph.D. graduate education, the parties are recommitting themselves to a second phase of the CONACYT-YALE Fellowships.

The CONACYT-YALE Fellowships will be used for the financial support of eligible Mexican Nationals who meet the regular admission standards of the Yale Graduate School, who matriculate as degree candidates in Ph.D. programs at YALE and who remain in good standing. The Fellowships will be first available in the 2002-2003 academic year.

For the first two years of the CONACYT-YALE Fellowships, YALE will cover the costs of full tuition, regular departmental stipend, health insurance, and the regular summer study fellowship. For years three and beyond, YALE will assure that the student is supported with stipend, tuition, and fees either by a University Fellowship or an Assistantship in Research or a Teaching Fellowship as other comparably situated graduate students. For all years, CONACYT will provide to each CONACYT-YALE scholar a supplemental loan of up to $5000 per year.

The CONACYT-YALE Fellows will be enrolled in the regular academic programs of the Graduate School. YALE will invite the CONACYT-YALE Fellows to participate in social and professional activities that are organized for the recipients of other prestigious graduate fellowships. In addition, to publicize the availability of the CONACYT-YALE Fellowships, YALE will participate in recruiting efforts in Mexico and will assist students in applying by providing timely information to CONACYT and any Mexican universities who wish to nominate students.

Initially, we expect that 5-15 Mexican students will be candidates for these fellowships. The number in subsequent years will depend both on our mutual experiences and on the degree to which CONACYT extends a comparable offer to other universities in the US.

While the principal detail of the program with regard to financial support of the students have been agreed upon and are stated above, additional conversations must be held to define the duration of the PROGRAM, the total number of students who would be eligible, the mechanics of accounting and transfer of funds, and the precise language that describes the PROGRAM. By this letter, we declare our intentions to proceed with the necessary discussions and to establish the formal agreement in time for students to benefit from the PROGRAM in the coming academic years.

Monday, May 13, 2002
On behalf of

CONACYT Director General Jaime Parada
YALE UNIVERSITY President Richard C. Levin