<p>The company I work for is not related to what I wanted to do, so they are not going to pay for it.</p>
<p>Ignoring the difficulty of getting into grad school with a 2.7 GPA, no, there will probably not be any funding. Fellowships and teaching assistantships almost always weight GPA heavily in their criteria, so your best bet would be a research assistantship. For the most part, RA’s are awarded by individual professors who can apply whatever criteria they want. If you could get accepted and if you wound up with a professor with RA’s to award and if you managed to convince him or her that you both needed and merited the award then it would be possible to get one.</p>
<p>But that would be a long shot. And that is assuming you are a PhD student - if you are a masters candidate, odds are even worse.</p>
<p>Now, there are also federal loans available, but they are not generally recommended for grad school. But they are there.</p>
<p>So even if get accepted, would I not be able to afford it then. My company won’t pay for (diff field) and can’t pay out of pocket. I’m thinking of post-secondary education, but trade school and community college are not helpful in that area.</p>
<p>What kind of program are you considering?</p>
<p>There are many PhD programs that fund all of their admitted students. If you managed to get into one of those, then they would fund you. These are usually top-ranked programs where it’s very difficult to gain admission in the first place. Examples are Yale’s PhD in English ([“all</a> doctoral students in English receive fellowship support from Yale”](<a href=“http://english.yale.edu/graduate/fellowships-and-funding]"all”>Fellowships and Funding | English)) and Harvard’s PhD in economics [“Economic</a> students receive full tuition and stipend support while they are enrolled and making satisfactory progress toward the Ph.D. degree”](<a href=“http://economics.harvard.edu/pages/admissions]"Economic”>http://economics.harvard.edu/pages/admissions)).</p>
<p>In other departments, although they say that their awards are merit-based, in reality all of the students are funded through various means - in part because the program is so competitive that students are very competitive for university-funded fellowships and external awards. Stanford’s economics PhD program is like that.</p>
<p>From your recent posts it looks like you’re not very sure about what you plan to do a degree in, although things might’ve changed between April and now. In most of the fields you suggest funding is slim to nonexistent for master’s students. I think you briefly mentioned engineering, where I think that sometimes students get full or partial funding if they work as RAs, but with a 2.7 you are very very unlikely to be offered one of those RAships.</p>
<p>There are two issues here – getting into a graduate program and then getting funding. About the first, once you decide what your interests are (english, history or engineering), one possibility is to take a class or two as a nondegree student. Hopefully you would get an excellent grade, and then eventually be able to enter the grad program. At my university, this is how the less than stellar students manage to the graduate admissions committee that they could do graduate work.</p>
<p>English Education most likely.</p>
<p>My own personal experience…</p>
<p>I got into a state university MS Computer Science program with a 2.7GPA from undergrad (BS Computer Science). I didn’t think it would happen, but I guess I was lucky. I wouldn’t rate the program or school as a “flagship” by any means, but a lot of what YOU NEED is incredibly case-by-case.</p>
<p>I work in the defense industry as a software engineer and for me, having an MS CS is equivalent to 2 years of work experience so the purpose of completing the MS was to learn a bit more than what I learn on the job as well furthering my career progression.</p>
<p>Fortunately, funding was never an issue as I currently serve in the National Guard and the state offer’s a 50% tuition waiver for members of service. I was also able to walk out of undergrad with zero educational debt because of this benefit.</p>
<p>Alucard, do you have any English teaching experience? I am not in education, but friends and colleagues in the field have told me that it is difficult to get into PhD programs in English education and nearly impossible to get a faculty position in the field without some teaching experience (at least 3 years). I think they are due to accreditation requirements for education programs that lead to teacher licensure - they want to be sure that the people teaching teachers how to teach actually have experience teaching themselves.</p>
<p>If your goal is an M.Ed (or other master’s) in English education because you want to be a teacher, then chances are you are going to need to pay out of pocket and/or with loans. Some states have competitive fellowships for teachers who agree to teach in a critical area and stay in the area for 2-5 years, but you are probably not competitive for them AND English usually is not a critical field (unless you are doing ESL).</p>
<p>Some states also have forgivable loans - you borrow the money from them, but if you stay and teach in the state for X years they forgive the loans. There’s also the federal [TEACH</a> grant](<a href=“https://studentaid.ed.gov/types/grants-scholarships/teach]TEACH”>https://studentaid.ed.gov/types/grants-scholarships/teach), which has the same stipulations - it’s a grant as long as you teach a high-need area in a low-income area for four years. English is not a high-need field, though. Being a reading specialist or teaching ESL is.</p>
<p>However, each state gets to desginate teacher shortage areas. If you get the grant and then go teach in those states, you can fulfill your obligation. In 2014-2015, the only states that had English as a shortage area were Delaware, DC, Hawai’i, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and any DoD schools. So if you live in or are willing to move to one of those states to teach for 4 years, you might be able to satisfy your requirement. But the teacher shortage areas change every year, and I’m not exactly sure how it works but there’s no guarantee English will stay on the list. ESL is always on the list.</p>
<p>It would have to be loans. Probably not private loans, I’ve read alot them try to rip people off. Paying out of pocket is not option, I only have $9,000.</p>
<p>Polo-Thanks but not sure how that helps. That really doesn’t apply me at all.</p>
<p>Self-fund.</p>
<p>I already said paying out of pocket is not an option. Only have $10 grand in the bank and company won’t pay for it. Can’t join the military either, take meds for aspergers.</p>
<p>Not that interested in ESL. Maybe I should get a bachelors in Ed, even I already have one in Mass Comm.</p>
<p>Getting a second bachelors has more problems than getting a masters in a new field - it will be perhaps easier to get accepted, but will take longer and will have even worse funding opportunities despite similar (and longer) costs.</p>
<p>You have ~$10k in the bank. I would suggest taking some senior or grad-level courses in your new area of interest, courses that will prepare you for the grad program you want and demonstrate that you are NOW an A-student. 3-4 courses like that with A’s and you have a decent chance of getting a funded position.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info. Unfortunately they are not very many tech school or vocational programs in my area, and just a few community colleges with limited programs. And I’m big believer in online degrees, not only are they harder, but I believe you learn alot less with (at least in areas where you need to learn).</p>
<p>I don’t think there are very many funded master’s programs in English education that lead to licensure, anyway. So even if you had a 3.4 GPA, or higher, I’m not sure that there would be a bunch of funding for you to pursue in the first place.</p>
<p>Theres has to be, I honestly don’t think most people would be able to pay out of pocket on a part-time job.</p>
<p>Honestly Juliet, I did some more research. Most masters degrees are funded, so you are wrong there.</p>
<p>I forgot to mention, I have gotten few grad offers, just don’t know how to pay.</p>
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<p>I’m confused–have you already applied and been admitted to graduate programs? What have they told you about funding? </p>