Merit alone is often not the only or the decisive factor determining graduate school aid. Especially once you have been accepted to a department, there are other factors that can play a role in whether or not you continue to get aid during your graduate school years. Unlike undergraduate level, at the graduate school level, you may be at a specific institution for five or even ten years, depending on the program, research assistantships that you get and how long you take to complete a PhD. In the case of international students, remaining a perpetual student may help to ease the visa issue and remaining legal in the United States.
Here are some tips to consider when you are seeking financial aid in graduate school:
- Don’t step on any toes. Performing arts faculty consists of somewhat erratic and even unpredictable personalities. As a fresh student, avoid stamping on everyone’s toes to indicate your importance.
- Get along with the faculty.
- Be willing to step out of the “academic” boundaries and perform favors. For example, if you are asked to do an accompaniment for chamber ensemble outside your usual sphere of activities, step up to the plate.
- Don’t complain.
- Have a positive attitude.
- Always try to do more than what you are asked to do. Don’t try to get away, doing the least amount of work. Professors know when idleness is involved.
In many graduate school programs the available funding is published in a leaflet or on the web, or can be obtained through a discussion with the faculty chair. The following are some of the common forms of funding for graduate students.
Tuition scholarships and waivers. For professional degrees this may be all you can expect, and you may receive only partial tuition support. The rest of your education will have to be paid for by campus employment, savings, spousal income, and/or loans. You do not have to pay back scholarship money, and most of the time, you don’t have to work for it either. If the scholarship has no service requirement,
it is not considered taxable income. Therefore it should not appear on W-2 or 1099 forms, and you do not have to report it on your annual 1040. You do not have to report it when applying for loans or state aid.
However, you can’t claim the tuition bill covered by the scholarship as an educational expense, either. If work is required for your tuition scholarship or waiver, the money may be considered taxable income. Be sure that
you have in writing what work, if any, you need to do for scholarship money.
Sometimes, state schools find it easier not to bill someone than to find scholarship money because state legislatures are very tight with tax dollars; hence the invention of tuition waivers. You are simply not billed for
the courses taken, or the additional out-of-state tuition charge be waived. Sometimes partial tuition scholarships are called fellowships. You receive a cash award that is promptly subtracted from your tuition bill. Stipends. A stipend is supposed to allow students the time to devote their full attention to their studies instead of having to flip burgers to pay rent. In return for nine months of career-related work, you will be paid a stipend to cover your living and otherwise uncovered educational expenses.
A stipend may be associated with a title: full-time graduate assistant, halftime teaching assistant etc. The important things to know are how many hours you are supposed to work and for how many dollars per semester.
You also need to know how many academic years you are guaranteed a stipend, assuming satisfactory academic progress. Of course, your next question should be-what is the average time it takes students in your discipline to earn a degree? There may be a gap in funding between the two, and you need to ask the director of graduate studies how students support themselves after the assistantship runs out.
The career-related work associated with the stipend should add luster to your curriculum vitae. Less experienced teaching assistants will supervise course laboratories, grade examinations, give guest lectures in class, run tutorials, or lead discussion sections. More senior graduate assistants may actually design their own courses and give all of the lectures. If you are planning an academic career, get as much experience as you can, assisting with a variety of courses in your discipline. Not only does it look good to a faculty search committee, but it also gives you ready-made courses or laboratories for when you start your career.
The amount of the stipend money that you receive will vary among schools, among departments within a school, and even among students within the department. The amount of stipend may also be independent
of the amount of time you put in. On average, graduate students work about 16 hours a week towards teaching assistant (TA) duties, but this varies.
The stipend is taxable income (federal, state, county, and city), and if you are classified as an employee, you may also lose part of your paycheck to FICA. It is important to know how much of your earnings will disappear before you get your paycheck.
You may be expected to pay school fees, supplies, and books out of your stipend, as well as tuition. Don’t forget medical insurance and health center fees, along with parking. There are normal living expenses such as
room, board, and transportation as well.
Research assistants (RA). Research assistants get a stipend for doing research for a faculty member. The amount of the funding will vary depending upon the discipline. The source of your stipend as a research
assistant may be a government grant or the university coffers. Grants require frequent renewal to keep the money flowing, so this route may appear risky. But university RA money is not guaranteed either.
In general the faculty members who get the research grants hand out research assistantships. Therefore, if the faculty member happens to be your graduate advisor, and you have a good relationship with him or her, you may be the first in line. Even if your advisor doesn’t have any research dollars, another faculty member may.
In general, research assistantships pay more than teaching assistantships. Both have their advantages. The TA gives you teaching experience, the RA gives you research experience. Fellowships from the university. Receiving a fellowship is an honor. Every academic department, however, will have a different definition of
what a fellowship is. The best fellowships will last three to five years and include a 12-month stipend. How do you get in line for free university fellowship money? Unlike fellowships awarded by foundations or the government, there usually is no separate application. The department will nominate you based on your application to graduate studies.
Extramural fellowships—that is, awards that don’t come from faculty research grants or university coffers—are funding sources for which you apply directly, independent of the school. Some of the largest extramural
fellowships come from the government, while some of the most prestigious come from private foundations. Some fellowships support you for several years, others just for one year while you are getting started, doing field research, or writing your dissertation. A few fellowships even support a year of travel between college and graduate school. There are, however, few fellowships offered by foundations or the government that apply to students in professional schools or in master’s degree programs.
Extramural fellowships usually supply a healthy stipend and a partial or full tuition scholarship. Sometimes you will also get an educational allowance. Because you are supported by an institution or organization outside of the university, you shouldn’t have to teach or do research for a faculty member. Some fellowships will, however, have an academic requirement to teach courses sometime during your graduate career.
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