Financing Graduate School

mackinaw
Wed, 08 Dec 2004 21:31:39 +0000

Momrath, there’s a whale of a difference in financing of PhD’s and most other graduate degrees. For PhD’s if a student is really any good, and is attending a very good program, then she’s highly likely to get full financial support, to include tuition, a monthly stipend, and, in most cases, health insurance. The financial support will generally come in the form of fellowships or assistantships (for research or teaching). In my university (my department) about 90% of the PhD students receive this kind of funding, either from the university or from external sources and funding agencies.

I should mention that the standard assumption for PhD students is that they are financially independent of their parents. So there’s no expected family contribution or the like. If either of my kids were to go into a PhD program, they’d be on their own in this respect.