I am a high school senior who wants to obtain her Master’s degree immediately after her Bachelor’s. Basically, I am in a position right now where I could either pay a lot of money to go to a really great school for my Bachelor’s, or go cheap (still a great program, but not a “good” school) at a local public university. I am a very good student, I can make good connections with people, and I would really love to work on research projects with professors at whatever school I go to.
If I go to the cheaper local public university, and make excellent connections/get great grades/work on interesting research projects, etc., do you think I have a fair shot at getting a full ride or large scholarship to a somewhat prestigious grad school? I know that is a very vague question, but I guess what I am trying to ask is- is it easier to get a full ride or large scholarship to grad school than undergrad? I have heard people talk about being a TA (something I would be very interested in), can you do that while studying for a Master’s degree? How does that work? Are there special payment options available to you in grad school that aren’t available to you in undergrad?
I know these questions might sound dumb, but I am just trying to learn more about how grad school works before I select my undergrad institution. Thank you in advance!
These are not dumb questions but they are very premature since you have not yet started college. I get why you are thinking about it though.
Here is the general scoop, for many STEM fields anyway. Most of the time, Masters degrees are self-funded while Ph.D.'s are usually fully supported as Teaching Assistants or Research Assistants. For this reason, if your goal is really a Masters (and my contention is that you really cannot tell at this stage of your academic career) then you will either have to self-fund right after college, have your employer pay for it yes they still do that), work for a while and save up enough to self-fund, or go for one of these very popular co-terminal programs where you get the B.S. and M.S. in a fixed time, like 5 years (if you come in with a lot of AP credit, you can cut this to 4 years) with the same undergraduate financial aid the whole time.
Of course there are exceptions to this. There are funded Masters programs, often at universities where the Masters is the highest degree offered. There are certain disciplines where the Masters is a required step in getting a Ph.D. and often there is funding for such students.
The ramifications are vast and you really cannot compute all the possibilities and account for them. For the moment, you should focus on deciding what are the criteria for choosing your undergraduate institution. Don’t worry so much about ranking and do worry about finances. Find the place that you can afford and which makes you feel at home then engage with faculty, get involved with research and get a great education. When you apply to graduate school you will have choices and you can weigh the pros and cons of each program then.
There are grad assistantships for masters students in every field, they are just less common than they are for doctoral students and therefore that much harder to get. But I agree with xraymancs - worry about your undergrad now, try to keep your expenses (or at least your debt) low. You can worry about grad school in detail when you are closer to that point.
I think you are worrying about this far too early. You might decide you don’t need or want a master’s; or you might decide to work for a few years after college, and your employer might pay. Or any number of a zillion other things. Trying to plan out the next 6 years is difficult; I think you should just minimize your undergraduate costs regardless, because you give yourself more freedom and flexibility to make choices on the back end if you keep your debt low.
But to answer the questions you asked:
Yes for a PhD. No for a master’s.
If you are asking whether going to the local public university is going to hinder you in any way, the answer is no. What you do in college is far more important than where you go.
If you are asking more generally about the chances of getting yourself completely funded for grad school - this depends on the field, but the answer is probably no. If you want a professional master’s - like an MBA or an MPP or something - there is very little non repayable aid for those kinds of programs, so most likely you will be financing that through loans and personal income (so no scholarships or grants). If you want a research-based master’s in an academic field (like an MA in biochemistry or English literature)…there are a very few funded master’s programs, and other programs that might not be explicitly funded but may offer certain top applicants some assistantship to help them cover it. But, more likely, you will be paying for it with loans.
It depends on the program. Some programs only allow doctoral students to TA; other programs allow MA students to TA if there any slots left after PhD students; some programs allow their PhD and MA students to compete equally for the slots (or don’t have PhD students). Some programs don’t need TAs. If you go to get a professional degree you most likely cannot TA because there really won’t be any classes for you to TA. If you get an academic master’s (like a master’s in biology), you might be able to. How it works varies from program to program.
…not really. Not other than loans, anyway. The amount you can borrow in federal Direct loans increases to $20,500 per year. Then there are Graduate PLUS loans, which you can borrow yourself as a graduate student - you can borrow up to the total cost of attendance of your program. I would imagine that these two loan programs are the way most master’s students who don’t have parents paying for them or scholarships cover their master’s.
My MA was more than fully funded…I received a scholarship and a TAship that gave me about $6000 more than tuition. It is possible, just work hard and things will work out.
Of course, it is far too early for you to worry about this. I probably changed interests 5-6 times in undergraduate and I have been accepted to a PhD progam that has nothing to do with my MA work.
@silky28, I am really glad that you got your MA fully funded plus some! It’s true that funding does exist out there for a few exceptional students.
But…I do want to dispel this notion that if you just work hard, everything will work out. That’s how students end up in crushing debt. Unfortunately, sometimes students who do work really hard will still be expected to borrow for an MA program - simply because of the field they go into, if nothing else. In addition, a particular student might work hard but there may be 10 students who worked harder (or were just lucky or connected) and got the 10 scholarship slots at X program.
It takes hard work, but also a bit of savvy (to find the programs in one’s field that have opportunities for funding) and then some luck.
Thanks for your response and input… I am actually in a bit of a unique situation, and have completed 2 years of college in high school. So I will be transferring into a 4 year college or university with only 1.5 to 2 years left, depending on which school I go to… so this is something I definitely need to be thinking about now. My major is Geography (also minoring in Geographic Information Science), and I would like to teach at a community college when I get my masters and eventually go on to get my PhD so I can teach undergrad at a 4-year… I have a very clear idea of what I want to do and the path I want to be on. I would like to go to grad school immediately after undergrad.
Once you start you will see whether it is wise to graduate in just 2 years. It won’t give you much time to get involved in research in such a way that you can be a strong candidate for a graduate program. Of course it is possible but you might find that an extra year of undergraduate will give you that extra edge. You might find that your university has a co-terminal B.S./M.S. program which will meet your needs.
Anyway, since your goal is to get a Ph.D., you do not need to get a Masters before going for a Ph.D. program. My recommendation is to go to the more financially affordable school, get a lot of research done in your time there and apply for a Ph.D. program.
I’m not sure there are a lot of community colleges that offer geography courses, and even if they did, the academic job market is so competitive now that it is difficult to get a full-time teaching position at a community college with an MA. I have a friend who is in geography; she did her MA first and immediately went into a PhD program. She did serve as a TA but no sole taught classes.
I also agree with @xraymancs. You might take 3 years to graduate because of the way the requirements of your degree are structured, or you might decide to stay longer to get more research experience. Or you might decide to take 2-3 years after college to get more research experience, even if you want to go straight from undergrad.
My major is Geography (also minoring in Geographic Information Science), and I would like to teach at a community college when I get my masters and eventually go on to get my PhD so I can teach undergrad at a 4-year… I have a very clear idea of what I want to do and the path I want to be on. I would like to go to grad school immediately after undergrad.