By Donald Asher, author of Graduate Admissions
Essays: How to Write Your Way into the Graduate Program
of Your Choice, the best-selling guide to the graduate
admissions process, Ten Speed Press. $19.95
Are you an ambitious young person? The top careers
in math and science are accessible only to those who
complete graduate degrees, a master’s at least
or even better, a Ph.D. If you want to make the world
a better place, do really exciting science in your own
lab, and set an example for others in your community
and in your family, then graduate school is definitely
in your future.
Besides, you’ll earn way more money. For example,
over their lifetimes, Americans who complete a Ph.D.
earn $1.3 million more than those who stop at the baccalaureate
degree, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
That’s real money.
But doesn’t graduate school cost a lot? Not necessarily.
Let’s explore some of the myths, and some of the
secrets, about funding graduate-level education.
First of all, it’s not called “financial
aid.” It’s called “support”
or “financial support.” Financial aid is
an undergraduate term. And, unlike most undergraduates,
you’ll be considered an independent student; your
parent’s financial data are no longer required.
Are you on full financial aid as an undergrad? You
may not have to pay application fees to apply to graduate
school! Ask your financial aid officer to prepare a
letter (or increasingly, make a call) stating that you
are a strong scholar on full financial aid, who needs
a waiver of application fees. This doesn’t work
every time, but it works often. If you need to provide
a credit card number to use an on-line application site,
they’ll give you a code to enter. Ask, and you
shall receive.
Next, and this is a shocker: It’s frequently cheaper
to go to an expensive school than to choose a supposedly
inexpensive option. Elite, expensive schools tend to
conduct a cost-of-attendance allowance, taking in all
aspects of your unique situation, whereas the local
state university is likely to offer you some tuition
relief, if that. The schools that you think are most
expensive may in fact be cheaper for you to attend,
if you can get in. First big tip: Don’t compare
schools by comparing their tuitions. Your goal is to
find a way not to have to pay that tuition at all.
Don’t want to pay tuition? Consider going directly
for the Ph.D. Full-time Ph.D. students often don’t
pay tuition. If you think you’ll ever get a Ph.D.,
going straight from an undergraduate program into a
Ph.D. program will save you money and time. (Don’t
worry; you’ll still get a master’s degree.
The master’s degree is built into the doctoral
degree plan.) Some of the most elite universities in
the country prefer to take their doctoral candidates
straight out of undergrad.
As a related point, public universities with in-state
and out-of-state tuition rates often don’t charge
tuition to Ph.D. candidates, thus making your residency
status moot.
Next myth? The wisdom of pay-as-you-go. For all types
of degree programs, it is frequently cheaper to go full
time, even if you have to borrow significantly, than
it is for you to get out, work, save money, and return
to school. Why? Because you’re paying for your
education with undergraduate level earnings! Ph.D.’s
earn almost $30,000 per year more than baccalaureate-degree
holders. It’s smarter to pay for your education
with post-graduate-degree earnings, rather than the
entry-level salaries you’ll command with just
a bachelor’s degree.
The earlier you invest in education the more dividends
you will reap over your lifetime. Delaying graduate
school is just a bad financial choice. Besides, your
undergraduate loans will be deferred while you’re
in graduate school, so don’t worry about them.
What about working while in your graduate program?
Sure, but why not make such work part of your educational
process itself? You do this through what are called
assistantships. There are three main types: teaching,
research, and graduate assistantships (TA, RA, and GA,
respectively). Assistantships are an odd hybrid beast,
partly an honor, partly a half-time job, and partly
an apprenticeship. There’s nothing quite like
them in corporate America.
With a teaching assistantship, you’ll teach undergraduate
classes and labs in your field. This is an elite assignment.
You are selected by the department as a whole, and good
grades (at least in the discipline), and prior teaching
or tutoring experience of any kind are big pluses.
With a research assistantship, you’ll assist
a professor or a P.I. (principal investigator) with
research projects. You are selected by the professor
or lab chief, personally. Because of that, it is the
personal connection that matters most. If your interests
closely match ongoing research, you might be a good
candidate for a research assistantship.
Graduate assistantships are more like regular jobs.
Graduate assistants run I.T., educational support programs,
and administrative functions of all types at all major
universities. You get these the same way you get jobs,
by having needed skills, being reliable, being in the
right place at the right time, and by hustling professors,
lab chiefs, program directors and deans until somebody
relents and gives you an appointment!
Assistantships usually involve a full waiver of tuition
and a stipend. Stipends can vary from a few thousand
dollars to as much as $30,000, or more, per year. In
fact, many graduate students, especially those in the
math and sciences, earn more in grad school than their
old college pals do in entry-level jobs!
Savvy graduate students look all over campus for assistantships,
e.g., an engineering student might be a TA teaching
Arabic language classes; a math or science student might
be a tutor for the football team (a very cool assignment,
by the way); or a business student might work as a GA
in the graduate career placement office for the MBA
program.
One problem with assistantships of all types is that
they are selected via different means, and at different
times of the year, at every program in the country.
Indeed, even within the same department, different professors,
lab chiefs, and P.I.’s are going to have different
processes to identify and select graduate assistants.
It’s your job to discover how it is done at the
universities you’re interested in.
Assistantships, and in fact, many forms of funding
and support, are reserved for Ph.D. students at most
major research universities. If you want to get the
same opportunities while you pursue a master’s
degree, apply for a master’s degree from a college
or university that doesn’t offer the Ph.D. degree
in your discipline.
How about free room and board? If you have been a residence
hall advisor as an undergraduate, why not keep at it?
Plus, if you have native fluency in a foreign language,
you can be dorm mom or dad in a language dorm, or in
the international house. Also, sometimes in the summer
you can get an assignment as chaperone for high school
students studying at university for the first time in
special summer programs.
Fellowships and grants are another great source of
money for graduate school. Fellowships and grants are
really the same thing. Fellowships are just big grants,
and grants are just small fellowships.
Fellowships and grants come in two flavors: internal
and external. You learn about internal fellowships and
grants from the institution that you are applying to.
You should inquire as part of your normal process of
applying, but to really work the grant system, it helps
to already be on campus. On every campus, there is a
grants book, or a grants committee, that has the complete
list of funding sources available on that campus. I’ve
seen grant money for single dads, to buy the books for
single mothers, and to pay tuition for students studying
religion or spirituality, just to name a few examples
of the types of obscure funding available. It’s
your job to find this book or committee and check it
out.
You can learn about external fellowships and grants
from such books as Harvard College Guide to Grants,
Foundation Grants to Individuals, and the Grants Register
(actual title: Annual Register of Grant Support, but
no one calls it that.) There’s a good list of
these books in my book, Graduate Admissions Essays.
You can also go online, to such sources as finaid.org
and fastweb.com,
but the books are much better. For example, there
is a scholarship for people who knit, which you would
never find online, but if you saw this in a book,
you might suddenly remember your latent interest in
knitting, if you understand my point.
The books are vastly better than the web sites, so
don’t be lazy: Get down to the library and check
them out. They’ll be in the reference section.
By the way, if you go to interview at a graduate program,
especially in the sciences, they are likely to ask you
what scholarships, grants, and other funding sources
you’ve applied for. I recommend that all students
apply for at least four external (or, third-party) scholarship
sources. Faculty don’t really care if you win
an NSF grant, for example, so much as they care that
you understand that it is your job to be applying for
this type of external funding. So, show you understand
the process by being able to name several scholarships,
fellowships, and grants that you’ve applied for.
You can bridge the gap between your need and what you
can hustle up through fellowships, assistantships, and
waivers by borrowing money for your graduate studies.
Of course you should not borrow a small fortune to study
something with extremely modest career options, but
if your education supports sensible career plans, don’t
be afraid to borrow even significant amounts of money
to reach your goals. If you are a U.S. citizen, with
a pulse, you can borrow $18,500 per year for graduate
study in federally guaranteed student loans. Through
banks you can borrow even more. The point is that the
money is there if your interest is there.
Remember, you can pay the money back through your significantly
increased earnings.
Finally, there is something very odd about financing
graduate school: You cannot tell how much it will cost
you until you apply and are admitted. You have to take
a “leap of faith” and apply, both to be
admitted and for various sources of funding, before
you know how you are ever going to pay for all this.
Be brave, make the decision to attend graduate school,
work closely with your faculty advisors, apply to several
schools, and you will be able to find the money for
your graduate education.
My best wishes for your success,
Donald Asher
