Financial aspect of PhD programs

[Anonymous]

If you get admitted to a PhD program, does that always come with some sort of research assistantship/fellowship that allows you to make ends meet? If not, in what percentage of cases does it not? If not, does that reflect something about the quality of the program or the applicant?
I know you can file a FAFSA for grad school, but was wondering if that's used for professional programs or whether some people finance their PhDs. And what if you're doing a joint professional degree/PhD program?

[Anonymous]

If you don’t get a fellowship or research support you typically need to get a teaching assistantship.

Paying tuition should never be done for a PhD. Your support beyond that could seem meager but it isn’t additional debt.
The school where I teach in fact has an express policy that students are not allowed to be “self supporting” so we never admit someone who we could not provide a means for their support through their PhD

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you don’t get a fellowship or research support you typically need to get a teaching assistantship.

Paying tuition should never be done for a PhD. Your support beyond that could seem meager but it isn’t additional debt.
The school where I teach in fact has an express policy that students are not allowed to be “self supporting” so we never admit someone who we could not provide a means for their support through their PhD

This but I also thought this was common practice, no?

[Anonymous]

This varies quite a bit from field to field. Then there's also variance from school to school within a particular field.

In the sciences, it's typically fully funded - research or teaching assistantship, which includes tuition waiver and a stipend. Research assistantship for the whole time is quite common in the biomedical sciences. Physical sciences (physics, chemistry) and math have a lot of teaching assistantships too. (These departments have 'service courses' that MANY undergrads take). There are certainly research assistantships and fellowships available and top students get them, but teaching then joining a particular researcher's lab and research assistantship is a common path, too. All include tuition waiver + stipend. I don't have experience with other sciences (geo, environmental, non-medical bio) but I suspect its a mix of the two.

Another variable is if an assistantship is guaranteed for the typical duration of degree completion (~5 years plus/minus some). This is where I see the most variation that correlates with 'quality' of program. It's by no means a strong or good correlation, but schools & programs with consistently more funding and more undergrad enrollment can predictably offer assistantships and guarantee funding for the completion of the program. Newer/smaller/fewer rain-making faculty just can't do that.

All bets are off in humanities and social sciences. My friends in these fields never seemed to have stable funding. They eeked it out but it was often down to the last moment to learn if they had the teaching assistantship (and thus tuition waiver) or not. 'Self-funding' was rare. Semesters away from the program and working odd jobs was more common.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you get admitted to a PhD program, does that always come with some sort of research assistantship/fellowship that allows you to make ends meet? If not, in what percentage of cases does it not? If not, does that reflect something about the quality of the program or the applicant?
I know you can file a FAFSA for grad school, but was wondering if that's used for professional programs or whether some people finance their PhDs. And what if you're doing a joint professional degree/PhD program?

Funding definitely varies by field. For STEM, you should seek it for sure but for other fields (even public health), they may only fund a portion of their doctoral students. Depends on the school.

ALL of this is spelled out usually on the school's web page (if you read the section on graduate degrees). Take the time to do that. People on here seem to be answering based upon their limited experiences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:II know you can file a FAFSA for grad school, but was wondering if that's used for professional programs or whether some people finance their PhDs.

FYI I was fully funded but still had to fill out the FAFSA.

[Anonymous]

Just to highlight something a previous poster already mentioned — pay attention to how long guaranteed support lasts.

And different schools may have different policies re how external funding affects what they give you.

BTW, grad students are unionized at some schools (and unionizing at others).

[Anonymous]

Good point. The average PhD takes 5-7 years, but some schools only offer funding for 3.

Also, UC schools seem to offer OOS funding for one, then they offer only instate funding (which makes sense, but it is something to bear in mind).

[Anonymous]

It varies so widely by field--and also if you're going part-time vs. full-time. You can apply for federal student loans.