<p>if your (family's) income is less than $60000, harvard (yale etc.) page states that the university will cover the tuition fee. is it true for grad school as well?</p>
<p>thank you :)</p>
<p>No. Graduate aid is generally awarded on a purely-merit basis. No such thing as a “full need” grad school. The only need-based aid available is subsidized loans.</p>
<p>There are some programs designed to boost URMs, but even those are competitive entry.</p>
<p>well, that’s a no for me then. there’s no way i could afford it. :(</p>
<p>however, is it possible to receive a full support on tuition based on merit? this caught my eye (Harvard’s site): *Grant recommendations vary but ordinarily do not exceed tuition plus $23,000 in stipend support <a href=“2010–2011%20rates”>/I</a>. </p>
<p>thank you for your time.</p>
<p>If you are accepted to a “funded position” in grad school, they waive your tuition and give you a small salary to live on…usually between $18,000 and $27,000 per year.</p>
<p>Worry about getting into a grad program first, worry about paying for it later.</p>
<p>Most research-based graduate students receive full support from their institution. Being admitted to a Ph.D program without funding is tantamount to an admit-deny.</p>
<p>$27,000 is on the VERY high end for graduate stipends and you should not expect that much. As a funded master’s student, my stipend is only $11,000. It depends on your school and field - STEM programs tend to have more money on offer than humanities and social sciences.</p>
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<p>I have never heard of a single Harvard PhD student, regardless of income, who has ever had to truly pay for tuition out of their own pocket. While tuition might be ‘charged’, the PhD stipend should easily cover it. Now, granted, there might be some Harvard PhD students - particularly long-time humanities grad students who long ago had exhausted their stipend - who might be paying tuition. But that seems to be rare. </p>
<p>Obviously it’s no walk in the park to actually be admitted to a Harvard PhD program. But assuming that you can, one could consider it to be a prime ‘merit-based’ scholarship: to actually get paid to earn a Harvard degree. </p>
<p>Master’s degree students, on the other hand, are often times unfunded.</p>
<p>Most top schools (don’t know if you’re shooting for these but you mentioned Harvard and Yale) will waive the tuition for Ph.D. students and then offer some sort of fellowship or stipend or assistance. These can range from no funding to funding in the form of an assistantship to one or two years fellowship and then the rest on an assistantship. Master’s students typically have to pay, though.</p>
<p>Not only “top” schools waive tuition and provide stipends for Ph.D students. Effectively, every school in the country that offers a Ph.D program funds the vast majority of doctoral students.</p>
<p>Any Ph.D program which admits students without funding isn’t worth attending anyway.</p>
<p>Most PhD students have their tuition covered and receive a stipend - most of them as RA’s or TA’s (with a work commitment), a lucky few on fellowships (no work). The proportion of PhD students receiving this level of aid varies by discipline and school. STEM graduate students are more likely to receive aid for the simple reason that STEM research is funded at a higher level, and that allows for more grad students. Also, top quality schools often restrict admission to those students who have complete external or internal funding, while “lesser” schools admit progressively more grad students who are partially or fully paying their own way.</p>
<p>Stipends also vary by field, BTW - as an engineering PhD applicant I was offered a 5-year $30k fellowship, something that is all but unheard of in the humanities.</p>
<p>I do agree with polarscribe, however - if you are NOT fully funded for your PhD, you should not be doing it. PhD’s do not generally make you a ton of money, so going into debt for them is a losing proposition.</p>
<p>wheee, there’s still hope. 
thank you :)</p>
<p>If you are pursuing a PhD abroad, the UK universities do not directly fund PhD students, instead one must find their own funding, whether that be through research council grants, scholarship awards, etc. Not being offered funding is not admit-deny there, but you have to be good to find funding as many of the usual sources are only for residents.</p>