Studying in a bad economy

jack63
Sat, 17 Oct 2009 10:24:31 +0000

If you have the Money to pay out of state tuition in California for a Masters degree, I’d say apply to these California schools. You may even have an advantage for admission because so many of the applicants will need some type of funding. I would say you have virtually no chance of a funding offer in these top California schools going for a Masters degree. It is an all together different debate about whether paying for a Masters in Engineering is worth it…as opposed to getting a funded Masters or PhD. I paid for part of my Masters degree…got funded after a year, worked, and am now in a funded PhD program. I thought the investment for my Masters was one of the wisest moves and worthwhile investments of my life.

As for admission and funding in grad school in Engineering. Admission is down and funding is down and can often be very late…funding offers a few days before classes begin. Students who would have gotten 4 year fellowships a few years ago are lucky to get a 1 year offer a few days before classes begin. Occasionally even American PhD students are going without funding…this would have been unheard of a few years ago.

…and it won’t get any better for this year’s admission cycle. These top Universities are struggling with a backlog of unfunded Ph.D. students and presently funded PhD students who won’t leave.