How does funding work for grad students?

[Fayd]

i got turned away from a grad school program for this year(my dumb ass for only applying to one), but i've renewed my efforts, and with the grades i've gotten on other prerequisites, i believe my options are fairly open for next year.(start applying now). as such, i'm gonna be applying to a lot more schools. applying for a MS: Statistics.

Anyways, I'm a resident in california, and i've been mainly focusing on instate schools....which kind of limits my options. not that california schools are bad, but some schools don't offer any kind of financial aid or TAships to masters students. (looking at you, UC riverside)

anyways, i don't know what to expect if i look out of state, and don't really know how much differently it'd affect what i'd pay. I've heard that with some schools, if you TA there you pretty much get fully taken care of in terms of tuition, stipend, etc. that's kind of the thing i'm looking for, but i'm pretty lost in terms of how to go about it. i also don't know how much the tuition + stipend covers, IE rent+food comes out of stipend, doesn't it exceed the stipend? if so, do you just expect to accrue debt through the whole process?

anyone who's had this experience wanna give me a heads up on the type of resources i should be looking at so that i better understand this whole deal?

 

[busydude]

I am an international student and a TA. The benefits you get as a TA depend on the university you are attending. In my case.. the Univ covers my tuition and gives me a monthly stipend. Being an international student, I get to work for a max of 20 hours per week.. and the pay is slightly more than 2 x Min wage of my state.

Few universities even waive the fees for TAs/RAs, in my case though.. I get to pay fees(which include insurance, shuttle, rec fee, etc.) out of my pocket. I know a few in-state students who get to work 30 hours per week.. as my university allows them to work for more hours.

Edit: This is my University's policy

 

[Fayd]

I am an international student and a TA. The benefits you get as a TA depend on the university you are attending. In my case.. the Univ covers my tuition and gives me a monthly stipend. Being an international student, I get to work for a max of 20 hours per week.. and the pay is slightly more than 2 x Min wage of my state.

Few universities even waive the fees for TAs/RAs, in my case though.. I get to pay fees(which include insurance, shuttle, rec fee, etc.) out of my pocket. I know a few in-state students who get to work 30 hours per week.. as my university allows them to work for more hours.

Edit: This is my University's policy

this 20-30 hours per week, is it for the university? like student jobs type deal?

 

[Whisper]

Finding funded master's programs can be pretty tough unless the field you're going into holds the master's as the "standard" degree of practice; most schools will save the majority of their funding for Ph.D. students.

That being said, if you find an RA/TA-ship, in general the university will cover your tuition and give you a monthly stipend. As busydude said, though, hardly any schools will waive fees, which generally amount to a few hundred dollars per semester.

Whether or not you can live off of the stipend alone without having to take additional loans depends in large part on where you're living and what your actual standard of living is. I've taken out additional loans, but there are people in my program who make it through on just the stipend.

Keep in mind that many TA/RA-ships and fellowships prohibit you from having any type of outside employment.

 

[Gibson486]

Finding funded master's programs can be pretty tough unless the field you're going into holds the master's as the "standard" degree of practice; most schools will save the majority of their funding for Ph.D. students.

That being said, if you find an RA/TA-ship, in general the university will cover your tuition and give you a monthly stipend. As busydude said, though, hardly any schools will waive fees, which generally amount to a few hundred dollars per semester.

Whether or not you can live off of the stipend alone without having to take additional loans depends in large part on where you're living and what your actual standard of living is. I've taken out additional loans, but there are people in my program who make it through on just the stipend.

Keep in mind that many TA/RA-ships and fellowships prohibit you from having any type of outside employment.

That is why you go apply for the PhD and stop once you get the masters....This is a pretty common trend now.

 

[Fayd]

That is why you go apply for the PhD and stop once you get the masters....This is a pretty common trend now.

a lot of universities i've seen place phd and masters on a different track... ie, you can't get the masters if you go the phd route.

dunno if that's the way it works in practice, but that's what i've seen looking through websites.

EDIT: to whisper:

do you mean just the stipend with no additional sources of income, or just the stipend, and additional sources of income to accrue no debt?


what i'm trying to figure out is how one would live. with tuition covered, there's still around 15-20k a year of living expenses, is there not? you have to live somewhere, you have to have insurance (tho i guess some schools cover this) and you have to eat. by my understanding, a stipend covers 6-8k of this? the rest is a combination of loans and external income?

 

[busydude]

what i'm trying to figure out is how one would live.

What Whisper said. It totally depends on where you live.. to determine the cost of living. Since you are going to pretty much stay in CA.. I think you need to supplement with student loans.

a lot of universities i've seen place phd and masters on a different track... ie, you can't get the masters if you go the phd route.

It depends on your adviser/Dept. mostly. Our dept. has a fast track program.. in which if you can impress one professor by showing some promise.. then he may refer you to the department to transfer you into a Ph.D program.

 

[Leros]

Its very hard to get a TA position as a masters student. My school first gives funding to recruited PhD students, then non-recruited PhD students, and then to masters students. There were generally wasn't any funding left over for masters unless you knew somebody.

I was able to get a TA position because my professor cheated me in, but he wasn't able to renew me because the rules and politics got in the way.

The TA wage at my university was:
tuition (less the taxes on that income)
$1900/mo salary for 4.5 months a semester
medical/dental/optical insurance

If you can get some kind of funding like I did and a good internship during the summer, you can make $30-40k a year.

 

[Fayd]

What Whisper said. It totally depends on where you live.. to determine the cost of living. Since you are going to pretty much stay in CA.. I think you need to supplement with student loans.



It depends on your adviser/Dept. mostly. Our dept. has a fast track program.. in which if you can impress one professor by showing some promise.. then he may refer you to the department to transfer you into a Ph.D program.

if i have to move out of california, so be it. i have no particular attachment to california.

 

[busydude]

i have no particular attachment to california.

If you could secure an admission in a Univ while being funded.. then it should be a no brainer. You also have to consider the fact that out-of-state tuition is ~3x more that what you pay by opting to stay in California.

As said above.. you should be really lucky to get a TA during Masters. I was one of the lucky few to get one.. and it was just a lucky coincidence that I was made a TA.

One thing I would suggest is for you to mail your Resume and SOP to Professors(Most will simply ignore it). If you are really interested in working for a certain Professor or in a particular lab.. the best way is to approach the Prof and tell him that you are ready volunteer for a semester.

 

[yhelothar]

UCR offers fellowships to masters students. I tried applying to the bioeng masters program, I was awarded the fellowship and my academic record isn't stellar.

 

[Rumpltzer]

Statistics. Is that part of Mathematics? If so, this is how it worked out for my former roommate while attending a grad program at a UC school...

They bring in a class of 15 or 20 new grad students, and they pay them as TAs. Eighteen months into the program, they give them the qualifying exam and 90% fail. They're allowed one more chance to pass.

Two years into the program, the 90% take the qual again and one person passes. The rest are asked to leave. The Math Department got a group of TAs for two years, but they couldn't keep that many people around competing with the profs for research money.

Former roommate takes a job as an actuary, makes tons of cash, and lives a mundane life.



I've never known any engineer in Illinois or California who pays for grad school.

 

[Whisper]

a lot of universities i've seen place phd and masters on a different track... ie, you can't get the masters if you go the phd route.

dunno if that's the way it works in practice, but that's what i've seen looking through websites.

EDIT: to whisper:

do you mean just the stipend with no additional sources of income, or just the stipend, and additional sources of income to accrue no debt?


what i'm trying to figure out is how one would live. with tuition covered, there's still around 15-20k a year of living expenses, is there not? you have to live somewhere, you have to have insurance (tho i guess some schools cover this) and you have to eat. by my understanding, a stipend covers 6-8k of this? the rest is a combination of loans and external income?

As posted by busydude, a lot will depend on where and how you live. Stipends tend to range from $12k-25k/year, depending on a variety of factors (your degree program, your department's funding sources, your university, etc.). If you need more on top of that to live, then you'll need to take out student loans. Some people find a way to make it work, and some get the loans for a little extra help.

As for going into a Ph.D. program and stopping after a master's--it's possible, but keep in mind that doctoral programs are significantly more difficult to get into than master's programs. There are many fewer slots; you need to do a better job of "selling" yourself to the department and, generally, to one particular mentor; and you're going against steeper competition. Beyond that, even if the master's is earned along the way to the Ph.D., it may be in a relatively "useless" major. Clinical psychology doctoral programs, for example, give their students clinical psychology master's degrees along the way, which (unlike a master's in counseling psychology or social work) can't get you licensed to practice.

 

[crashtestdummy]

As stated above, most master's programs won't fund you. The general feeling is that you won't be around long enough to do productive work for them and they're teaching you more than you are providing them with a service.

You can drop out with a master's, though I honestly have never see someone do so intentionally like that (I know many people who couldn't survive the PhD and dropped out). I have a master's (I'm a PhD student now), but all that degree would really mean to companies is that I never finished my PhD.

Why are you interested in the stats master's? What will you do with it that you can't do with your bachelor's?

 

[Wreckem]

It depends. My fiancee is a grad student. She's getting her masters, then going elsewhere for her PhD.

Here most(if not all) PhD candidates in her department are funded and are Graduate Part Time Instructors(GPTIs). About 10 incoming masters students got funding and are TA's. 15 master students got funding last year, making for a total of 25 master students as TAs.

 

[Leros]

It depends. My fiancee is a grad student. She's getting her masters, then going elsewhere for her PhD.

Here most(if not all) PhD candidates in her department are funded and are Graduate Part Time Instructors(GPTIs). About 10 incoming masters students got funding and are TA's. 15 master students got funding last year, making for a total of 25 master students as TAs.

I guess it depends on the major/school.

My department had about 1000 undergrads and 700 grads. The were about 80 TA positions. About 200 of the grad students were PhD students. Some of the PhDs had RA positions and some had TA positions. There were generally very few, if any, TA positions left over for masters students.

 

[Wreckem]

I guess it depends on the major/school.

My department had about 1000 undergrads and 700 grads. The were about 80 TA positions. About 200 of the grad students were PhD students. Some of the PhDs had RA positions and some had TA positions. There were generally very few, if any, TA positions left over for masters students.

That is a huge department. I don't think there is a department on campus here that can afford to have or need 80 TA's. We have a student body of 35,000.

For my fiancee, she has guaranteed funding for two years. They pay all but some fees, and she has a $13500 stipend paid out over 9 months each year. She will also have funding to go abroad for 8 weeks next summer to do research and an intensive language program.