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First, this post is not the final word on funding! I'll explain things to the best of my knowledge, but you should always talk directly to the departments that admit you, and to legal/financial advisors if appropriate. Second, other TMers should feel free to add additional questions or answers, or to correct any errors I make.
With that out of the way, here are some issues that seem to come up often:
1. What are the differences between types of funding?
There are four main types of funding: tuition waivers, fellowships, research assistantships (RAs) and teaching assistantships (TAs). Tuition waivers are the most limited type of funding. They provide either reduced tuition or free tuition, but do not pay stipends and may not cover health insurance. The other three types of funding typically include a full tuition waiver, health insurance, and a living stipend.
Fellowships are "free money." You don't have any work obligations in return for the money. Fellowships may be funded by the department, the university, or an outside organization. Common and prestigious outside fellowships that American students can apply for are the NSF and the Javits fellowships. Some fellowships are available to students based on their research interestes (for example, U-Mich has fairly generous fellowship funding for students interested in studying retirement or aging.) Other fellowships are designated for minority students, students from specific countries, etc. Many public universities provide "dissertation fellowships" that students in various departments can apply for in their final year of graduate school. You can do a Google search to learn what outside fellowships are available, and after you start graduate school, your department will probably tell you about university fellowships you can apply for. Fellowships are usually year-by-year; some of the big outside fellowships guarantee three years of funding.
RA positions are typically though not always specific to a faculty member -- they obligate you to do X number of hours of work per week for Professor So-and-So. X is usually around 20, though the actual work load can vary widely depending on your relationship with Professor So-and-So. Sometimes, faculty use RA positions to fund co-authored work with students, which is a great deal if you can get it! The actual tasks can vary widely; you could be doing coding, data collection or cleaning, literature reviews, editing, or anything else related to the research process. These positions are sometimes funded by the department, and sometimes come out of the professor's research budget. They are typically not offered to incoming students, but are instead offered by a professor to a graduate student he knows and has worked with before. A great way to get an RA position during the school year is to do RA work over the summer, when there are no tuition bills to be paid, making you a cheap hourly hireand doing a great job. RA positions are usually semester-by-semester or year-by-year.
TA positions are perhaps the most common type of funding for graduate students. In the typical TA position, you lead two discussion sections per week for a large lecture course, plus hold office hours and have some grading responsibilities. The professor you work for ultimately dictates the working conditions; TA jobs usually take around 15 to 20 hours per week of time. Some schools hire first year students as TAs and others do not. TA positions, like RA positions, are semester-by-semester.
2. Which type of funding is best?
Fellowships, because they are "free money," are usually considered the best type of funding. Fellowships also have prestige attached to them, and may provide larger stipends than other types of funding.
After that, it depends on your goals. Personally, I think RA>>TA, because RA work gives you experience doing research, lets you observe the research process up close, and may lead to research of your own (if, for example, you learn how to use a complicated data set, or get really familiar with the literature in your field). RA positions can also help you build relationships with faculty.
Doing at least one or two semesters of teaching can be important for those seeking academic jobs. People who want to teach at liberal arts schools might want to teach even more than that, and might want to TA for more advanced courses than Econ 101.
3. What if I'm not offered funding when I am admitted?
This is a really tough, and common, situation -- especially for those attending public universities. The first thing to keep in mind is that while first year funding can be hard to secure, almost all schools have sufficient TA positions for students in their second year and beyond, provided the student maintains "good standing" (which means a certain GPA and passing exams on schedule). While a year's worth of tuition and living expenses is a lot of money, it's not a lot relative to what you will earn after you graduate.
Also, sometimes funding becomes available after the initial offers are made. Schools make more admissions offers than they expect to have students in the entering class, but they do NOT typically make more funding offers than they can afford to give out. When a student with funding turns down an offer, then the school will offer the funding to someone else.
If your first choice school does not offer you funding, IMO the best thing to do is to be honest. Tell the school that you are interested in attending, but funding is an obstacle for you. If you have a funded offer from another school, it is appropriate to let the admissions director at your first choice school know. If you absolutely won't attend without funding, you can say that, but don't expect the school to cave immediately. This issue has been discussed in more detail on this old thread (Current phds: how much can we bargain?).
4. When is the last date that funding might be offered?
Funding is reallocated right up until the start of the semester. Some people do get offers late in the summer, but you probably shouldn't hold your breath.
5. What does the April 15 deadline mean?
April 15 is the last day you can turn down an offer of funding at one school in order to accept an offer of funding at another school. You can accept a school and back out later, and schools can offer you funding after April 15. Schools cannot require you to make a decision before April 15. This deadline is the result of an agreement between the many schools that form the Council of Graduate schools, and you can read about it here.
6. How much money are we talking about here?
Stipends usually range from about $12,000/9 months to $26,000/12 months. Schools in areas with lower costs of living typically give smaller stipends, and public schools tend to give smaller stipends than private schools. Public schools are also more likely to consider the stipend a 9-month payment, while private schools often build in summer funding.
7. Is my funding taxable?
YES. Typically, taxes will be withheld from stipends paid for TA or RA positions, because those are "jobs." However, you still owe taxes on fellowship funding even if the taxes are not withheld! You are responsible for paying estimated quarterly taxes to your state and the IRS.
8. Who gets funding?
This is very hard to answer. Many private schools don't offer admissions unless they can also offer funding, so all students have funding. At public schools, it is much less common for the entire entering class to have funding. I believe at at U-Mich, about half of the class has funding for the first year.
9. If I'm not offered funding, does that mean I'm at the bottom of the class, that I'll fail my prelims, or that the university doesn't really want me?
No, not at all. Schools don't offer admission to students they don't think will be successful. But they are budget constrained, and they use their funding to attract the students they want most. Sometimes those are the students who are thought to have the most potential; sometimes those are students with specific research interests that influential faculty favor; sometimes there are other considerations. But many, many students who don't have funding in their first year go on to do very well. And no one -- not your fellow students, not your professors -- will know or care if you have funding. It's between you and the director of graduate studies.
I think that's all I have for the moment, but hopefully others will add comments and additional questions.
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Originally Posted by econsgirl
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