ME masters-Thesis or NonThesis

NeoDymium
Thu, 09 Aug 2012 11:36:52 +0000

iambored10:

Question- Does anyone know if their are any M.S. programs that have some sort of funding whether it is in the form of scholarships, grants, RA, grading,etc.? Every program I am interested in states that their is no funding provided for MS students. Key schools that I am looking at are A&M, USC, and CMU.

Generally funding is scarce save for assistantships (TA or RA), which usually only give you enough for living expenses but not tuition.
A few places you could look:

1. FAFSA gives loans and less commonly, a few grants. Loans are unsubsidized though, which is not very fun.

2. You could look for fellowships, either from the school administration (reserved for the select few) or external. Unless you’re significantly more talented than the average bear, I doubt you’ll find this. Given that you aren’t trying for Stanford, MIT, and the like, I doubt you’ll get these. You should definitely still mass apply for them, but don’t be surprised if you fail on all fronts. Also, these are usually only for a single year, so finish in that year if at all possible.

3. You could get into a PhD program and drop out with a Masters. I wouldn’t recommend this because it tends to burn a lot of bridges to do this unless you happen to run out of funding and be forced out, or you are a master at diplomacy and be able to leave on friendly terms (unlikely, you wasted your advisor’s money). If you really, truly have no other options or are legitimately between PhD and Masters (50-50 not like 10-90), you can go for this route.