What graduate student donors give in federal races

A status label under $5.9 million

$5,871,698 is the occupation-level dollar total. 17,679 is the itemization count. 583 is the donor-record count. Dividing dollars by lines yields about $332 per contribution. Dividing by donors yields about $10,072 per donor record. The repeat rate is about 30 itemizations per donor record. Seventeen thousand-plus lines from 583 donor records is a high-repeat pattern in a limited headcount. Mean dollars per donor record sit higher than the student label might suggest; means are not medians.

Those means are arithmetic, not medians. The packet has no gift-size distribution, no party split, and no cycle series. A few large lines can lift $332 while most receipts stay smaller—or the reverse. This guide cites only the three harvested facts and the trivial ratios computed from them.

A few large itemizations can lift dollars per donor record while most lines remain smaller. The packet has no gift-size distribution and no stipend-versus-family-money split. FEC.gov does not explain who paid.

Student versus graduate student as occupation text

STUDENT, GRADUATE STUDENT, and PHD CANDIDATE are different occupation keys. A donor who files STUDENT in one cycle and GRADUATE STUDENT in another is split across occupation pages.

FEC Form 3 (candidate committees) and Form 3X (PACs and party committees) collect occupation as free text on itemized Schedule A. FEC.gov publishes what committees reported. There is no drop-down of job titles and no license check. LobbyVault groups rows whose occupation field equals GRADUATE STUDENT after indexing. STUDENT, PHD STUDENT, and GRAD STUDENT remain other occupation pages unless the extract normalized them to GRADUATE STUDENT.

What 583 donor records can and cannot show

583 donor records used GRADUATE STUDENT on at least one matching itemization. 583 donor records used GRADUATE STUDENT on at least one matching itemization. That is not a census of graduate enrollments. People who listed the status while giving from other resources can appear.

A person who listed GRADUATE STUDENT on some gifts and a neighboring title on others will appear in both occupation totals for the respective lines. Occupation is stored per transaction, not as a lifetime identity field. Address variants can also split one human into more than one donor record.

Occupation versus university employer pages

Industry pages on LobbyVault group employer-side categories. Industry pages group employers. Many graduate-student rows may show a university employer; that join is not in this packet. This page is occupation text only. Adding $5,871,698 to an industry total double-counts overlapping itemizations. Use one filter at a time unless you are tracing a single row.

Open the GRADUATE STUDENT occupation page for the indexed line list. Use the occupations index to place this string next to neighboring labels. Independent expenditures are not contributions and are not inside $5,871,698.

How to cite the graduate student key

A usable public-record citation names the exact string: GRADUATE STUDENT itemizations in FEC bulk data indexed on LobbyVault sum to $5,871,698 on 17,679 contributions from 583 donor records. Add that the figure is itemized occupation money. Unitemized receipts never carry an occupation code, so they never enter the total.

Source: FEC Form 3/3X schedules. The facts do not encode party. Recipient committees are a different join. The status label does not prove the donor’s income source or enrollment.

Treating GRADUATE STUDENT as typed status, not a registrar list

GRADUATE STUDENT in this extract is $5,871,698 on 17,679 itemizations from 583 donor records, or $5.9 million in compact millions. Those dollars are itemized activity on FEC Form 3 and Form 3X schedules indexed on LobbyVault from FEC.gov bulk data. Unitemized receipts never carry an occupation code, so they never enter the total. Refunds and memo entries follow FEC presentation in the underlying schedules; this guide does not invent a fourth occupation-level fact. Student status on Schedule A is donor-typed text, not a registrar match. The occupation field is donor-supplied free text, not a NAICS industry code and not a verified roster.

Arithmetic means on this key are about $332 per contribution and about $10,072 per donor record, with roughly 30 itemizations per donor record. Means are not medians. The packet has no gift-size distribution and no party split. STUDENT, PHD STUDENT, and GRAD STUDENT remain other occupation pages unless the extract normalized them to GRADUATE STUDENT. Combining those keys without naming each source total changes the unit from one FEC string to a homemade cluster.

Industry pages group employer-side categories and should not be added to $5,871,698. A public-record citation that stays inside the packet is: occupation equals GRADUATE STUDENT, dollars equal $5,871,698, contributions equal 17,679, donors equal 583. Candidate and committee pages hold the recipient side. LobbyVault does not infer motive from the occupation column.

Researchers who need cycle cuts, employer text, or recipient lists should leave this guide and open the live occupation hub. This file restates harvested packet facts only. Compact millions ($5.9 million) are the same headline amount as $5,871,698, rounded to one decimal place. Keep the contribution count and the donor-record count in any sentence that quotes the dollars, so readers can see the shape of GRADUATE STUDENT in this extract. Exact-string matching is the method. Anything else is a different query.

Questions

How much have graduate student donors given in FEC records?

Itemizations that list GRADUATE STUDENT sum to $5,871,698 across 17,679 contributions and 583 donor records in the LobbyVault index of FEC bulk data. The total is an exact-string occupation filter. Occupation is self-reported free text on FEC Form 3 and Form 3X schedules. Unitemized receipts never enter this occupation total.

Is STUDENT included in the graduate student total?

No. STUDENT is a separate occupation string. This page covers GRADUATE STUDENT only: $5,871,698, 17,679 contributions, and 583 donors. Combining them would invent a combined student total the packet does not contain. The occupation field is donor-typed on Form 3 and Form 3X. LobbyVault indexes exact strings from FEC.gov bulk data. Unitemized gifts never carry an occupation code.

Why is the average per donor record relatively high?

Dividing $5,871,698 by 583 donor records yields about $10,072. That is a mean, not a median. A few large lines can lift the average. The file still has 17,679 itemizations, about 30 per record. Cite the three packet facts with the exact occupation string. Source: FEC.gov Form 3/3X itemizations indexed on LobbyVault. Unitemized receipts are outside this total.

Where can I see the underlying FEC rows?

Open the GRADUATE STUDENT occupation page for the indexed list, then verify on FEC.gov. The occupation total is $5,871,698. Confirm surprising amounts on the committee report at FEC.gov. Occupation matching is exact-string only. Unitemized receipts never enter this occupation total.