My SO recently received a tuition waiver that covers her tuition for graduate school for her academics/merit.While we are really set on Columbia and their generous offer, we are concerned about the cost of living in NYC and the graduate aid package to fund some living expenses. Do graduate students receive any sort of grants/aid (similar to undergraduate students) or is there only an option of federal/private loans? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. We would hate to walk away from this offer!
No, grad students aren’t funded the way that undergrads are. PhDs are often funded via tuition waiver and a commitment to TA or RA in exchange for a stipend. Often health insurance will be included. MS is usually self pay for tuition and living expenses. But some schools will fund some students for some of the time. So if you are getting a tuition waiver that is a very good deal. It is possible there are paid TA or RA positions. She should contact the department. So other than outside fellowship, you would pay your expenses via graduate student loan, the other spouse’s salary, savings…
Thanks for the reply! It is a MS degree. I forgot to include that. I’m worried that the $20,500 limit of federal loans for the first year of graduate school won’t take her far in living expenses in NYC. While I plan to find work there as well, I’m trying to assist her with her options. I understand that there isn’t a Pell Grant or anything, do institutions provide any need based grants for low income graduate students? Or are we stuck with loans only? Also, concerning the TA or RA if they aren’t offered in the acceptance offer dpea she need to contact and ask about this?
We are trying to get some better advice on what is included in a graduate financial aid package besides loans since you must accept a university’s offer in order for them to review and provide you with a financial aid package. We would rather know up front before we accept so we don’t have to back out due to a lack in living expenses funding.
I wouldn’t expect any need based aid for grad school. That is not usual. I have also never heard of accepting an offer for them to review and provide you with an aid package.’ Offers usually come with admissions and I suspect you have your offer already in the form of tuition waiver which is a very big deal and not offered to everyone for an MS.
I think they can still seek the TA positions from the department even if it was not offered as part of a guaranteed package. Often it is easier to pick that up in the 2nd year. Also NYC has a lot of opportunity for p/t work.
With the exception of students who are working immediately before attending grad school, virtually all grad students are low income based on the fact that they are independent students and probably have no appreciable income.
With the exception of professional schools, their parents income and assets are no longer a factor. Her best bet is to look at Columbia housing (which can still be expensive but less expensive than the surrounding area of Morningside heights and harlem to see what is available.
If she is does get a RA/director position in the dorms, which may provide her with free housing, because of the nature of the job, there may a strong possibility that you will not be able to move with her.
I would recommend that you contact Julliet who is a grad married student at Columbia. Perhaps she can give you some insight on the housing situation at Columbia
If all they’ve offered is the tuition waiver, then all that will be given is a loan offer. However, there’s nothing wrong with ASKing if any money is available as a stipend for living expenses.
The $20k for loans is nothing to sneer at. If this is a 2 year program, that’s $40k of debt on top of any debt that she has.
You are looking for work. You should be able to contribute a HEFTY amount towards rent, food, utilities. To expect your SO to borrow a bunch to help cover the expenses of a COUPLE is rather silly. You two could break up and she’d be left with all the loans.
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I'm worried that the $20,500 limit of federal loans for the first year of graduate school won't take her far in living expenses in NYC. While I plan to find work there as well,
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YOU should be expected to contribute half of the household expenses and all of your personal expenses.
BTW…virtually all grad students are “low income”…that’s why there isn’t need based aid.
Hey @techguy90! I’ll send you a PM with more detailed information, but to answer some of your basic questions here:
-You can borrow more than the $20,500 limit - that limit is just for federal Direct loans. The rest you would borrow in Graduate PLUS loans; they have a higher interest rate but otherwise are quite similar to the Direct loans. You can borrow up to the total cost of attendance for the program less any financial aid you have already received. I don’t remember what the CoA is at Columbia, but I’m pretty sure that you could borrow something like $25-30K in total loans for living expenses if you wanted to. You’re absolutely right, though, that $20.5K won’t do much for you in NYC, lol.
-No, there are no need-based grants. Some programs might offer scholarships, but if she already has a tuition waiver that is probably the extent of the aid she will get other than loans. If the department has TA or RA opportunities, then she could apply for those separately (or in related departments, if there are any that need TAs. My department would sometimes hire TAs from related departments).
-Grad housing in Morningside Heights is cheaper than market rate housing in the same neighborhood, but still more expensive than housing you would find in cheaper neighborhoods in the city. My husband and I paid $1400/month for a two-room studio that was right behind campus. Convenient, but expensive. Had we moved uptown into Harlem or Washington Heights, we could’ve probably saved at least $200-300 a month. However, the trade-off is that you have to get a monthly Metrocard to take the subway - that’s currently $112/month (unless you live by the medical center campus and catch the shuttle every day, but the timing is funky). For two people, that probably would’ve offset any savings.
I will say that (from experience) even if you do find a good job, your spouse is still probably going to want to borrow for living expenses unless you’re making like upwards of $75K. It’ll just be less. When my husband and I shared married housing in NYC with my stipend plus the part-time work I picked up I was making about $30-40K (before taxes, though). He also had a stipend from the GI Bill that amounted to probably around $30K (nontaxable). I still felt like we were kind of scraping by a bit - I mean, we had everything we needed and we never went hungry, but we did have to budget closely.
I also agree that there are tons of opportunities for part-time work. I will say that there were way more once I got my MA, but even without it there are a lot.
I will say that (from experience) even if you do find a good job, your spouse is still probably going to want to borrow for living expenses unless you're making like upwards of $75K. It'll just be less.
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The OP isn’t a spouse.
I wouldn’t advise the OP’s girl friend to take on add’l grad Plus loans if those are to support BOTH people. They aren’t married. If they were to break up, she’d be stuck with add’l loans that were used to support a boyfriend. BAD IDEA. She would have NO MEANS to force her “ex” to pay back the loans that were for his living expenses.
She might need to borrow a few thousand more (if her grad school won’t provide any living expense money), but she should only borrow what she absolutely needs.
I would think that if she borrows some amount between $25k-30k per year, and the BF gets a job that NETS about that much money or more, then they should be fine.
Have a joint net of at least $50k-60k per year (again, that’s NET) should be enough to live on while she is in grad school for a couple of years.
The point of the post was to assist my fiancee with figuring out her funding situation for graduate school, i’m pretty confident that she knows how to handle what she wants to take out in loans and what she wants to pay back. As I noted in the post I am looking for my own job, and none of these funds are specifically for me, but we are a team so we are browsing our options together. NYC living is very expensive to live in so we need to figure out how we can jointly make enough money to pay our bills.