<p>Do most students pay for Masters Degrees in Engineering? I recall a few years ago I had a few friends in graduate school that told me that almost no one pays for a masters in this field. However, I know the economy is different now. Also, I noticed that several schools note online that TA'ships are typically not for newly entering graduate students.</p>
<p>No, most students have their Masters paid for, regardless of the economy. It isn’t uncommon to come in without funding, but most students find a funding source within a semester at research institutions.</p>
<p>By master’s, do you mean MS or PhD? I have always been under the impression that MS students have to provide for their own funding.</p>
<p>Often companies pay for M.S. degrees in engineering, which may be why you’ve heard “almost no one pays.” My understanding is that, unless you have a corporate or government sponsor, you have to pay at least part of the cost. Some programs may have T.A.-ships that give specific students a tuition reduction or even a waiver, but I don’t know of any that give you full tuition as a matter of course. That doesn’t mean that they don’t exist, however.</p>
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<p>A PhD is not a Masters. It is a Doctorate. I meant a thesis-based MS.</p>
<p>Momwaitingfornew, companies often do pay for an MS, which is how a lot of people get their paid for, but at a research university, it is very common for MS students to have a TAship or RAship, in which case they get tuition paid plus stipend just like a PhD student, only they get paid a little less.</p>
<p>Depending on the strength of your admission application, you may not get funding right away as an MS student, but most MS students either come in with funding or find funding within about a semester of starting their program.</p>
<p>I agree with boneh3ad. Most students don’t pay for an MS. Frankly, with an engineering degree, I don’t know why you would pay for it. Like others have said either.</p>
<p>a. your company pays for it (part time).
b. you get an assistantship or fellowship (full time)</p>
<p>In any case it wouldn’t necessarily make financial sense to pay for it yourself.</p>
<p>So most MS students find funding within a term/semester at a research institution. So then if you start as a full-time graduate student (so not company supported), you would need to sort of make it a priority to find a funding opportunity asap? I’m not sure exactly how that process works.</p>
<p>I was asking about a Masters (not PhD), as a full-time student, at a research institution. The tuition and living expenses look really quite high. So I wasn’t sure how most people would want/would be able to justify the cost of a MS, especially if you are out of state.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the response so far</p>
<p>I’m going to disagree with some of the previous posts. Yes, Masters students in engineering find full funding(tuition, stipend, health care), but to find it within one semester is tough and you should not count on it. A year is the more likely amount of time for many institutions before a masters student can get a full funding offer, but a semester is possible. </p>
<p>I’m presently in a PhD program. Before that I worked in industry after getting a Masters in Engineering. In my Masters program it took me a year of paying tuition before I got a TA giving full funding. </p>
<p>The economy now makes it tougher and also results in fewer admits for both PhD and MS programs in most areas of engineering.</p>
<p>Should you pay for part of an engineering Masters? Many say no, but I would say I never doubted the investment I made in my Masters program…for one year. It seemed to be a pretty good bang per buck and its benefits where clearly than for the loads of money that my undergrad cost.</p>
<p>If you did Masters of Engineering (as opposed to Masters of Science) would that mean that you did a coursework only Masters and didn’t have to do research? That is usually t he case. With most M.Eng’s, you have to wait for a TAship to open up and until you have proven yourself capable of teaching a subject. If you are doing a thesis/research-based degree, you will have a lot easier time finding funding because you don’t have to have taken certain classes to help out in a lab.</p>
<p>I don’t know a single thesis-based MS student here who didn’t have funding BEFORE the beginning of the first semester. I realize that is the exception, but I don’t honestly know any MS students ANYWHERE who didn’t have funding within about 6 months of starting their program. Again, this only applies to a thesis degree since it involves being an RA.</p>
<p>grad5344, I would suggest talking to professors at schools that you are interested in and perhaps asking about their research and if they have openings in their groups. That is how most people I know got into their groups so fast. Start doing that early, like around application time.</p>
<p>Boneh3ad…Many universities don’t really distinguish between Masters of Engineering or Masters of Science in Engineering in the same way that Texas A&M might(where I think you go to school) or wherever. For example, in my masters program Masters or Science in Engineering was the top degree wether you did research or not.</p>
<p>Many schools do funding differently too. You can spend the first semester looking for a professor before finding one to do a thesis with. You can be paying that first semester. Also, students should really be aware that if they don’t have an RA and funding lined up before they come, it may not be easy to find one to do a thesis with, depending on the program you are in. Usually, professors would much rather give the funding money to a PhD student. In the program I’m in now at Umich it would be nearly impossible for any masters student to find an RA after 1 semester to work on a thesis. They MIGHT get the RA after a year though.</p>
<p>Have I heard of thesis Masters students paying tuition in the field of engineering… Sure…its not the norm though. Most get the RA. I’ve heard of some students in the situation(Masters-Thesis) who get paid hourly, and don’t get the tuition waiver/health insurance.</p>
<p>Most of the universities that don’t distinguish between M.S. and M.Eng. don’t have both of them. At this point in time, I don’t know of any school that has both degrees without there being a tangible difference (almost universally thesis vs. non-thesis) other than MIT. I still don’t know what the difference between M.Eng. and S.M. is at MIT.</p>
<p>That in and of itself is a problem. At least in the U.S., there is no standardization for naming your degrees, which leads to a degree of ambiguity. Most M.Eng. degrees are non-thesis. That isn’t to say that all of them are that way, but most are. It seems like if they can standardize the color of the tassel worn at graduation for engineers nationwide, they ought to be able to standardize the names of degrees and what they (roughly) represent. Still, that is a separate problem.</p>
<p>I have definitely heard of that same situation where some early M.S. students get paid hourly without benefits, which seems like it is usually the case when they haven’t been attached to a specific lab yet and just have the department footing the bill for them until they find a professor. There may be other situations, but that seems to be most common from my experience. I would imagine that this is, therefore, most common among top students who are admitted but don’t have a clear advisor yet, which is uncommon on its own, owing to the fact that this arrangement isn’t the norm.</p>
<p>You are correct that I am at Texas A&M right now, but I came from the University of Illinois before this and have spoken with a lot of students at both Purdue and Georgia Tech (those 4 were my final 4 when narrowing down grad schools) and in all of those places it seems to have been closer to what I see at TAMU than what you apparently see at UMich. I certainly agree with you that it is nearly a universal law that professors would rather fund a Ph.D. than an M.S., owing to the common semester or two where the student foots the bill, but I have seen far more people take one semester to find funding than two semesters at the 4 institutions that I narrowed it down to.</p>
<p>Still, that doesn’t really prove anything since we are both going off of anecdotal evidence. All we have really managed to prove is that it is uncommon for a Masters student and engineering to have to foot the ENTIRE bill for their degree but that it may take one or several semesters before they find that funding. I guess without some sort of meaningful, scientific survey of Masters students, there is really no way to tell for sure what the average is, though I would imagine that the OP’s original question has been answered well enough to get him moving the correct direction.</p>
<p>'Depending on the strength of your admission application, you may not get funding right away as an MS student, but most MS students either come in with funding or find funding within about a semester of starting their program. '</p>
<p>for finding funding within a semester, is this true even for those who enter an engineering MS program from a different field? for example, I plan to enter a MSME program after doing a BS in physics with a 3.77 gpa and 2 undergrad research projects, but I’ve only completed 2 undergrad ME courses. Why does it take a semester? they have to see that you have what it takes to do well in the MS program?</p>
<p>I have a friend who is an international student and is trying to get funding for an MS in engineering. Is what has been said so far on this thread apply to international students as well? </p>
<p>Namely, how hard is it to get a teaching or research assistantship for an international student coming in? If they can’t get one coming in, is it fairly easy to get one after a semester or two, even in the current economy? Are there particular engineering schools where it is easier to get these than others?</p>
<p>Bumping this as I never did get a reply :)</p>
<p>All insight would be welcome, but any input/insight from international students who have been awarded a TA or RA position before coming to the States would be particularly useful.</p>