The Unofficial SMART Scholarship Forum

To be fair, the $1200/week payments was a little ridiculous.

what was the change?


and to be fair, the $1200/week should be considered payment for work performed. As long as you don't spend your summer surfing youtube, you are likely saving your SF $10-$15k in work over that 3 month period.

I got an email from my SF this morning saying that they were reduced to $600/week this year and nothing in years after. An email from SMART should go out today or tomorrow. They also said everyone gets payments regardless of proximity to the SF, which I guess is a better situation for some people.

I really hope this is incorrect; especially the "reduced to nothing" next year part. I couldn't make this work on $600 let alone nothing at all.

Would be interesting to pull out the original contractual agreement for the scholarship regarding the internship support payments. If this is a flat out change to the terms of the agreement I would think that would have implications on the validity of the entire contract.

Dr Fill wrote:To be fair, the $1200/week payments was a little ridiculous.

Okay you may think this is ridiculous but let me ask you where your internship was? Because mine was in Honolulu. So first of all a plane ticket cost close to $1000 to get there from my state. Then you have to rent a car so there's about another $2000. And please find a place to stay for around 2 months for a decent price because I paid $2000 a month for a studio apt plus $100 a month for a parking spot. So $4200 total just on rent. I hope you enjoyed your ridiculous money while some of us actually needed it.

The email I got also said that SFs may be able to give additional financial support to those who need it. But I do still think that for most people, not in Hawaii, $1200/week on top of the stipend was excessive and I understand why they are reducing and then eliminating it.

What I signed says "this cash award includes... ...Internship or Site Visit Travel Expenses" so there's no amount but definately that these expenses are included in the award.

We haven't heard anything from SMART yet so maybe we shouldn't get so worked up (easier said than done for me at least).

actually, asking the SF to help foot the cost of these students is a genius move on the part of SPO, and I applaud it.

I know more than one organization in the DoD has used the SMART program as free, unobligated (on the part of the SF) empire building.

Requiring the SFs to help fund the summer work will make sure the SF has put some investment into the student and program, and probably avoid some of the "issues" that are happening.

I haven't received an email from my SF, but I'm not happy at all with this. If they aren't going to put the money out, they should make the SF pay that money out then. The recipients shouldn't have to stress about this at all.

What ever happened to.... "Don't worry about any financial issues, all the money for your class has been put aside already."

This is ridiculous. Shouldn't have taken this scholarship.

Things like this encourage me to leave the DoD as soon as my commitment is up. I'M DONE.

WorkingForNothing wrote:I haven't received an email from my SF, but I'm not happy at all with this. If they aren't going to put the money out, they should make the SF pay that money out then. The recipients shouldn't have to stress about this at all.

I agree. But maybe that's exactly what they're doing, making the SFs foot the bill for future internship support payments, and maybe that's why Dr Fill is getting this info from his SF before any notification from the SPO has gone out.

If that's the case, I feel bad for Dr Fill. His SF is obviously shocked that *gasp* they have to pay someone to work for them for 3 months.

WorkingForNothing wrote:This is ridiculous. Shouldn't have taken this scholarship.

Counting down the days until the nightmare is over? I hope you don't have much longer.

I don't know why anybody would be happy with reducing or eliminating the internship support payments. Do you realize that they will not give you any money to cover your relocation costs? Do you know how expensive is to get a short term lease in a furnished apartment in the summer? Then you will have to add car rental plus gas costs or at least transportation costs to go to work everyday, food, etc, trust me it all adds up. I don't think they will reduce the amount that has been set but if they do, I will be very upset. As usual, we just need to wait for the official notification from the SPO.

To: SMART participants

Subject: Internships and Internship Support Payments

1) Internships:

As you make your arrangement for your 2012 internships, please note that the internship term
has not changed from years past. Internships are normally between 8 and 12 weeks, and they
should be scheduled according to the needs of the sponsoring facility.

2) Changes to internship support payments.

One aspect of managing the SMART program entails ensuring its policies align with OSD and
national security policies. Another aspect includes allocating funds in a fiscally appropriate
manner according to the National Defense Education Plan. Our new CAC guidelines, in a
separate email, bring our program into compliance with DoD implementation of HSPD-12. This
email addresses our need to promote fiscal responsibility in the manner of other DoD scholarship
programs.

Specifically, we are addressing the additional funding of the “Internship Support Payments,”
a funding not found within the scope of the National Defense Education Program allocation.
Over the course of these few years this additional funding source has grown from providing
reimbursement for specific costs to providing an additional $14,800 (roughly) per participant,
per internship, above and beyond the generous monthly stipend payment participants receive. No
other DoD scholarship program offers either the stipend amount that the SMART program does,
nor additional financial support on top of the stipend. As a matter of fiscal responsibility and
appropriate use of taxpayer funds, the SMART program needs to practice economic efficiencies
consistent within the DoD.

To that end, the following are necessary changes the program must make with regard to
internship support payments:

•We have begun phasing out the provision of additional funds apart from the monthly
stipend.
o Internships taking place in 2012 will be supported with a (reduced) internship
support payment in addition to their monthly stipend;
o Internships in 2013 and beyond will not include additional funds beyond the
monthly stipend.

•The 2012 internship support payments will be $600/week.
o Fiscal responsibility requires that we cut costs;
o We choose to reduce it by 50% rather than 100% in the interest of timing and
recognizing that participants are making internship arrangements.

•This year only, the internship support payment is available to all participants completing an internship, regardless of distance from any address to place of internship.

3) Increasing availability of other funds for participant access

•The program is lifting the monetary limit on outside funding (restrictions on sources still
apply);

•Participants agree that despite accepting outside funding, they are still bound to a service
commitment to the federal government;

•The program encourages sponsoring facilities to offer additional cost-of-living funds to
the participants while they are present and completing their internship.

Just got the official email from SMART. Above is what was in the initial email I got. Very similar.

Get on Craigslist and find a roommate for your internship. I found it for 450/mo. Everyone is tightening their belts, just remember why you took the scholarship..... A job! Go without one for a while lol.....

Also register on the AHRN website. They have listings for temp housing as well.

I am officially upset and considering other career options other than Public Service at the end of my commitment. Good luck with your internships this summer.

I feel completely and utterly scammed.

What happened to telling us that we wouldn't have funding reductions at orientation? That the funding had already been secured?

They hold us to such strict standards contractually - are they not breaking their contract? Does anyone have any idea if we have any possible legal reaction to this? I can't believe they can just take away that much funding (nearly $40,000 over my 3 internships)

Guest5 wrote:I feel completely and utterly scammed.

Welcome to the club.

It looks to me like they are correct, they are still fulfilling their contractual obligations. However, I also feel highly mislead. They should know that if the goal of the program is to get top-tier students into public service, this doesn't get them to that end.

I, for one, would have taken the SMART scholarship even if they hadn't initially offered the extra stipend. I am sure every participant (on some level) feels screwed by the system after this happened. They would have done much better to "grandfather" current participants into the system they signed up for and impose the new rules on future participants.

Respectfully, I think they "screwed the pooch" on this one. I'm sure it was a difficult decision with financial changes and constraints beyond their control, but I think they will see long term ramifications in the participant satisfaction with the program and thus retaining them once the commitment period is over.

As a current applicant this is probably a game breaker for me. They are essentially reducing the take home money by 37% (Bachelors), 29% (Masters) or 26% (PhD) while supplementing it by removing some of the restrictions on income. I plan on attending an in state public institute so the SMART stipend + tuition - travel costs of internship < my current salary. I am having trouble joining a program that reduces my personal benefits and leaves me with a service period at less than commercial salaries.

I understand that sponsoring facilities are encouraged to assist with cost of living expenses during the internship process but that is not guaranteed, could vary year to year, and provides me no stability or ease of mind. I will reach out to the facilities that contacted me but I find this change very troubling.

**Assuming 14,800 internship support payments with base stipend of 25,000 , 36,000, and 41,000.

I looked at the award agreement I signed and found this:

This Award includes:
1. Cash Award paid monthly at the annual rate of $XX,000.00. Cash Award payments are distributed for
each month a Participant completes academic pursuits and/or Internships under the Program;
2. Full tuition and approved related educational fees;
3. Health insurance funding;
4. Book allowance of up to $1,000 per award year;
5. Internship or Site Visit Travel Expenses (some restrictions apply); and
6. Orientation travel expenses (some restrictions apply).

Doesn't this imply that they are obligated to provide internship expenses (#5) in addition to the other listed funding?

I personally think if they were worried about costs they should have gone to a reimbursement system, based on rent, miles traveled to location ect. I think that would have been fair and in line with #5.

Did anyone besides Dr. Fill receive this email? I have not seen anything like it from SMART today.

I got the e-mail as well.

And while the reimbursement system is definitely fair, I'd imagine it carries a fairly high administrative cost on the SPO end.

Where did you find that?

Guest wrote:I looked at the award agreement I signed and found this:

This Award includes:
1. Cash Award paid monthly at the annual rate of $XX,000.00. Cash Award payments are distributed for
each month a Participant completes academic pursuits and/or Internships under the Program;
2. Full tuition and approved related educational fees;
3. Health insurance funding;
4. Book allowance of up to $1,000 per award year;
5. Internship or Site Visit Travel Expenses (some restrictions apply); and
6. Orientation travel expenses (some restrictions apply).

Doesn't this imply that they are obligated to provide internship expenses (#5) in addition to the other listed funding?

I personally think if they were worried about costs they should have gone to a reimbursement system, based on rent, miles traveled to location ect. I think that would have been fair and in line with #5.