Here's a question I've been wondering about.  Just how necessary are
fellowships and grants for completing a college/university degree?  At my
alma mater, only a small number of graduate students are given multi-year
fellowships, now usually parceled out as 2-3 years of payment of tuition
plus a stipend with no teaching or other responsibilities, and one more
year as a t.a.  I have noticed that a great many students who received the
most generous awards in fact have finished no more quickly than others who
received very little.
        When I arrived in 1991, having been given one of the lesser but
still most appreciated multi-year awards, I found that there were many
awardless students who were furious with resentment towards people like
me, and they weren't reluctant to express themselves.  They claimed that
students with awards frequently sloughed off and often left without
completing their degrees.  Looking back now, I would have to say that
there is something to their complaints.  I know people who've gotten very
prestigious awards who are no farther along on their dissertations than
those students who've had to work part or even fulltime in unrelated jobs
(these are people in areas with a similar expectations in terms of
research and writing)  I know of several students who claimed that they
would stay in the program only long enough to use up their fellowships and
would then leave--and they did.  I know others who lived in the despised
grad dorm (1/2 regular cost of living for the area--and I still live
there!) to make it on their reduced budgets, who had little "social life"
that cost money, and so on.
        I've been thinking about this lately and the impression I get
from many of the posters here is that there are many people who
put themselves through school with little help (like Indigo Nights), and
that many of them are now educators.  Any opinions this late Sunday
night/Monday morning?

        Adrienne DeAngelis