Funding
Graduate School
Financial Aid & Scholarships
How
can you pay for your graduate education? Working on a Ph.D. is
expensive, but lack of an income should not stop you. Help is
available. This section will talk about:
There are McNair
specific fellowships available at: UC Davis, Univ. of Northern Texas,
University of Missouri, Indiana University, Boston College, Colorado
State University, Fordham University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute,
Binghamton Univ., University of Arizona, and University of Pennsylvania.
Please go to the list of application
fee waiver universities to see details. If no details
are listed, let me know and I will contact the McNair coordinator
at that school.
The Essentials
of Planning
First, look at the cost of the graduate school you will be attending
and see how much money you will need per year. Usually the
graduate school catalogs list typical expenses. Don't forget
to figure in the cost of living for that particular area.
Costs may include:
- Tuition
(there is usually a huge difference between in and out of state
tuition)
- Fees
- Health
insurance (this may be included in the fees)
- Books
- Travel
and local transportation, parking, auto insurance
- Computers,
art supplies, or other necessary equipment
- Housing
- Entertainment
- Living
expenses, including rent, utilities, food, clothing, telephone,
etc., and
- Child
care, if it applies
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Sources of
Funding
Next, look for sources of funding. Some of your funds will come
from areas that are under your control: loans, outside jobs, savings,
or family. Everything else will come from one of two sources. First
is internal funding, money that is controlled by the university
you are attending, and second is money from external sources such
as national fellowships. The first source includes fellowships,
assistantships of all kinds, work-study jobs, grants, and tuition
waivers. The second source, external fellowships, consists of scholarships
or grants that you apply for independent of your university. We
will concentrate on internal funding, since that is where most students
get their money.
Internal
Funding from the university
A great deal of financial aid is controlled by the universities,
and you should make the most of this fact. There will not usually
be a central location where all the financial aid possibilities
are listed. It's not that easy. The places to look are first in
your own department or program, then at the Financial Aid Office
of the university, in the Graduate College of the university,
and in the college in which your department is located. The administrative
organization varies from one university to another, but generally
your department will be in a college--the history department will
probably be in the Liberal Arts College. In addition, there is
often a Graduate College that deals with the graduate programs
in the university. All of these places are possibilities, but
the most important one is your own department.
Since each
department selects the students to receive assistantships and
also many of the fellowships, start your search for funds in the
departments before you apply. Begin by reading the information
that you are given. See what is available in the programs you
are interested in. Look carefully at the descriptions of financial
aid for students in each program. If you have questions, ask the
Graduate Adviser what funding is available. He or she can tell
you about assistantships and also the fellowships that the department
controls, and estimate your chances of getting help.
Financial
aid through your university, generally, is in the form of fellowships
or scholarships, teaching assistantships, research assistantships,
other assistantships, work-study programs, and student loans.
Loans are not controlled by the university, but you apply for
them through the Financial Aid Office. In addition to the department,
ask the university Financial Aid Office about other sources such
as university-wide fellowships, assistantships, grants, work-study
programs, outside jobs, and loan programs that are financed with
university funds.
External
Funding from outside sources
Many external awards are for students in specific fields, such
as the U.S. Public Health Service Fellowships for students in
the biological or social sciences, or the Foreign Language and
Area Studies Fellowships in such fields as Asian, African, Latin
American, and Russian and East European Studies. They all have
different deadlines and application forms. Go to the
Types of Aid section to learn more.
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Good
Applications can Bring Money
When you send in your application for admission, you also apply
for financial aid, either as part of the general application or
on a separate form. A good application, with good references,
transcripts, and a winning essay, can easily be worth $20,000
a year to you. A half-time assistantship may bring in $8,000 to
$12,000, and tuition, except for in-state students at a public
university, often exceeds $10,000 (at the University of California
at Berkeley it is currently $13,378).
Some universities
will automatically consider you for all fellowships, scholarships,
and assistantships when you submit your application for admission.
At other universities the application for financial aid is a separate
form. This point should be made clear in the instructions. If
the request for financial aid is separate, be sure to fill it
out even if you think you will not get the money. If you don't
apply, you certainly won't. Be sure to check the date the application
for financial aid is due. It may be
different from the date for your application for admission.
Make sure
your application is as good as you can possibly make it. Be meticulous,
and send it in early. Even if your qualifications are good, if
your application is mediocre you may get a notice that you are
accepted with no offer of financial aid. Click here for
info. on the application
process.
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Your Offer
At the time you are accepted you may be offered financial aid,
either a fellowship, teaching assistantship (TA), research assistantship
(RA), some other kind of assistantship, or a combination of fellowship
and assistantship, possibly with a tuition waiver. A majority
of doctoral students, and some master's students, in big universities
are offered some kind of financial aid. It is not at all unusual
for students to be offered a waiver of tuition plus a combination
of fellowships and teaching assistantships that will pay most
of their living expenses. This is great, and is what most students
want.
Some fellowships
are for first-year students, and are not renewable; others may
be awarded for terms of several years. If you are offered a fellowship,
be sure to find out for how long, or if it can be renewed or replaced
by a teaching assistantship. If you are awarded an assistantship,
ask if there is a cutoff time after which you get no aid. It is
not likely that the department will guarantee renewal of an assistantship,
but there is usually an understanding that it will be renewed
for some years if your performance is satisfactory. When you know
about the offers you have received (more than one, you hope),
you have the pleasant task of deciding which one to accept.
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Types of
Aid
The following describes types of aid available to graduate students:
- Fellowships
and Scholarships
- Assistantships
- Work
Study & other funding
Fellowships
& Scholarships
Fellowships and scholarships are cash awards, frequently given for
academic excellence but sometimes on the basis of need. There is
no real difference between a scholarship and a fellowship. Often
an award to an undergraduate is called a scholarship and one to
a graduate student is called a fellowship, but no hard and fast
rule exists. Sometimes the funds are reserved for minorities or
women.
You don't
have to work at any specific job for the fellowship, or fulfill
requirements other than keeping your grades up. It frees you to
concentrate on your academic work. What you are expected to do
is to make good progress toward your degree. Departments choose
which students will be offered these awards. There is tremendous
variety in the amount they pay. Some
fellowships with impressive names give only $500 per year; others
will pay tuition and some additional cash, sometimes enough to
live on, usually not. A few will pay all tuition and fees together
with a generous stipend.
Fellowships
usually are for a specified length of time, one to three years.
Some can be renewed, but most cannot. The conditions should be
explained clearly when the award is made. After a fellowship expires,
the student is offered an assistantship for which teaching or
other work is required.
Search the
following web sites and look at links:
Assistantships
An assistantship usually means that you teach, or assist in research
or administrative work. A teaching assistantship requires you either
to assist a professor in class or to be responsible for a class
on your own; it's a job. Though you have to work, they have many
advantages, such as the teaching experience and the day-to-day contact
with senior department members. Assistantships
sometimes pay enough to live on.
A research
assistantship is often in the sciences, sometimes in the social
sciences, education, or liberal arts, and requires laboratory
or other work under the direction of a faculty member. Research
assistantships in the humanities may involve library work, construction
of bibliographies, or data entry on computers and might be paid
for out of the professor's research budget.
Other assistantships require you to work in some non-teaching
job, such as clerical or computer work in administration. In many
universities a student can have both a fellowship, for which he
or she does no extra work, and an assistantship for which there
are specified duties. This is the way that a university will see
that a promising student gets enough money to live on.
Work
Study and other funding
If you can show that you have financial need, you may be able
to get a federal work-study job. Not every university has a work-study
program, and some award these positions only to undergraduates.
But many institutions include graduate students.
Up to 75
percent of the student's wages are paid by the federal work-study
program. The department that employs you pays the rest. Because
hiring for these positions is done by the department, people who
get them usually work in areas related to their academic field,
such as in university libraries, or laboratories, or assisting
in summer recreation programs.
To get up-to-date
information and to see if you are eligible, talk to the university's
fellowship or Financial Aid Office. Work-study positions may be
controlled by the department or the Graduate College, or some
other entity within the university. You may have to search in
order to find them.
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