<p>Hey, ive heard before that some PHD programs in engineering are free. Is this true?</p>
<p>I’ve been meaning to ask this for a long time now but I just forgot to. It came across my mind again because as i was walking around school i heard someone telling their friend that ALL phd programs in EVERY school is free. Is that true? Im guessing not?</p>
<p>Please enlighten me on phd programs. thanks!</p>
<p>I have read that Phd programs are not free yet you pay for it mostly trough being a teachers aid.</p>
<p>Yeah… Bad news: PhD programs are not free, by a long shot, considering that you’ve got to pay tuition for five to seven years’ worth of grad school.</p>
<p>Good news: the VAST majority of domestic PhD students in engineering get their tuition paid, plus stipend, in return for doing research, which is a requirement for getting a PhD. I’m not sure it’s an actual requirement, but you have to write a dissertation, and your dissertation is written on the research that you’ve done, and you get paid for your research.</p>
<p>Almost no phd students pay their own way through school; though some do, most have funding or support of some sort. There are 3 major ways students get funding:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Fellowship - by far the most coveted, you get relatively good pay (though still meager compared to what you woukd make in a real job) plus tuition, fees, and health insurance covered. With this you have great freedom to work on what you want; you essentially get paid to work on your dissertation.</p></li>
<li><p>Research assistantship: someone has provided you (or rather your advisor) with money to work on fairly specific topics. Tuition, fees, insurance, plus a livable stipend. You are still paid to work on your dissertation, but you have somewhat less freedom. Expect to spend lots of time writing papers and proposals. Still highly coveted.</p></li>
<li><p>Teaching assistantship: often the last hope of PhD students without funding, you have to help educate people who are paying real tuition dollars. While teaching assistantships seem like excellent preparation for becoming a professor (and they can be), it is more often considered a distraction to your real job (research). If you’re really unlucky, you might spend lots of time grading. Still, these are coveted (though not as much as the above)</p></li>
</ol>
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<p>That’s going too far. Not all PhD schools are every school are ‘free’, even if by ‘free’ you actually mean that it is paid for by the 3 methods that jbusc stated above. There are indeed some PhD programs are some schools where you simply have to pay, and there are no fellowships or TA/RA-ships to cover anything. This seems to be especially prevalent in PhD programs in the humanities, as well as programs outside the US. For example, I know a woman who got into a highly prestigious PhD program in Europe, but couldn’t go because the program gave her no funding. </p>
<p>However, it is true that, as aibarr said, most engineering PhD programs in the United States are free in the sense that one of the 3 methods is available to cover the costs. I wouldn’t say that that’s truly “free”, because clearly the RA/TA positions force you to do work for the school, and the fellowships are generally not guaranteed through your entire stay (especially if you stay for longer than expected). However, many people interpret the existence of fellowships/RA/TA positions as “free”.</p>
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<p>I’m pretty sure most [if not all] places require you to write a doctoral thesis along with a successful defense before you are granted the degree.</p>
<p>^^ yes, sometimes they require more intermediate steps:</p>
<ol>
<li>Comprehensive Qualifying Exam (written)</li>
<li>Comprehensive Oral Exam - go or no-go decided by oram exam committee</li>
<li>Oral Defense of your Doctoral Dissertation - decision by Thesis Committee (chaired by your advisor)</li>
</ol>
<p>RA is not bad, cuz your research that you have been doing as a RA would be a substantial part of your dissertation. Yet, the RA salary is indeed bare minimum. :p</p>
<p>I should’ve phrased that better. I meant that I’m not sure whether or not <em>research</em> is actually explicitly required, but you’ve gotta do a dissertation. In order to write your dissertation, you have to have done some sort of research. Most people who do research get money for the research they do, ergo… </p>
<p>But yeah, you’ve gotta do Quals and Generals/Orals and then your Defense, too, after you write your dissertation. Add that to classes and your dissertation, and there’s five to seven years of your life.</p>
<p>Just a quick question: how longdoes it usually take to get a Phd?</p>
<p>Don’t forget that if you enroll in a PhD program in engineering, you are foregoing the opportunity to get an early start on a professional career. So even if you get a fellowship or assistantship that covers the costs of graduate school, you will still “lose” several years of higher income that you could have earned by working professionally as an engineer with a BS.</p>
<p>If you go the PhD route, you will emerge at the end of several years with a PhD degree, no savings, and no professional experience. Alternatively, if you go straight to work with a BS, you could acquire several years of work experience and some significant savings during the same time period. This is part of the “cost” of earning a PhD. In the long run, the PhD may or may not be a successful “investment” from a purely financial standpoint.</p>
<p>Well, it depends. But I would say, for engineering PHD, it usually takes 4 -6 years after your bachelor degree. </p>
<p>I know of a guy who took 10 years for an ecnomics PHD in yale :eek:</p>
<p>In most cases, about 4-6 years. However, it can be 3-8 years depending on the program and whether or not you had a masters coming in. A decent number of physics students at my school are here for about 7-8 years, but that is an extreme.</p>
<p>Damn, Rabban beat me to it.</p>
<p>thanks for the info guys</p>
<p>I got my PhD almost entirely on support from my teaching assistantship. While it does slow you down since you cannot spend as much time doing research I really enjoyed it. I knew I wanted to be a professor so it was fairly good training.</p>
<p>“In the long run, the PhD may or may not be a successful “investment” from a purely financial standpoint.”</p>
<p>Good and smart guys would spend a trivially different time span in striking a career success. Considering 6-8 years to earn PhD in Econ/CS, and likewise in a top-school MBA, one has to be smart and versatile enough to anchor a job and title to advance toward the top in 5 to 10 years from the start. Fact is you earn hard money 5 years before spending money on two years MBA, and similar fact is you work hard for a living 6-8 years to earn a PhD, after which you look for an appointment. MBAs would sell their work experience plus business degree networking. PhDs would sell their indepth expertise in the specific area concentration - “specialist”. From there, you build up your path to the Hall of Fame. Hank Paulson has his career path through the buisness school, whereas the Merton and Scholes have their surges from doctorates. You see life has no guarantee which way go straight to Heaven - except the “Tiger Rule” which dictates commitment to industry. This is the human spirit that fosters the will to win.</p>
<p>For most programs you don’t technically pay for your Ph.D…</p>
<p>but you must work as a TA and earn funding instead and in most cases you will be living off of a very thin check.</p>