“....I have some disappointing news. As I said before, the committee was excited about your application and considers you one of our top candidates, and voted to recommend admission to the Grad School. We were very hopeful about extending you an assistantship that would pay for your tuition and expenses and provide a stipend for living expenses. Unfortunately, as you may know, the state of New Jersey has a large budget deficit and the Governor just proposed a 15.1% cut to higher education. After a long and painful discussion, the Executive Committee of SMLR decided that we can’t take the risk of funding any new students this year. When we offer funding, we provide it to students for 5 years, and it is a large expense. The Executive Committee wants to wait until next year to admit funded students, when we will know the actual cuts and have a better sense of how they might be counterbalanced with tuition increases and other sources of revenue....”