<p>Are fewer scholarships/grants offered for graduate school than for undergraduate study? Everyone has a different case, but is this generally true? Is graduate school debt generally higher than undergrad?</p>
<p>It depends. There is usually little to no funding for professional programs - such as terminal masters degrees (non-thesis), JD’s, MD’s etc. Most thesis based masters and PhD students get funding for their studies, and in turn work for the department.</p>
<p>^^^
Exactly. As a Biology/Education graduate student (I straddled two departments), I spent one year teaching an undergraduate biology lab that met twice a week and a plant physiology lab (a T.A.). After that … I became a research assistant for my major professor and solely worked off her grant money has a research assistant. My H, who was working on his engineering Ph.D, solely worked as a research assistant for his major professor on his projects. We knew up front that we would be funded after we’d been accepted to the program. I will say, man … engineering grad students make more than education/biology grad students, that’s for sure. Or, at least it was that way when we were in school at Purdue. For the work we did … we received our tuition and a monthly stipend, which paid for rent, utilities, food, gas … and not much else. Definitely the definition of a starving student. <g></g></p>
<p>zebes</p>
<p>oh ok. Thanks</p>
<p>Back in the dark ages, I got a fellowship to UT-Austin to get my master’s degree in structural engineering. It paid all my school costs plus enough extra to live on and then some. I didn’t realize how fortunate I was! I had more discretionary income then than now, I think.</p>
<p>How difficult is it to get a fellowship? How difficult is it to get one coming from another school for undergrad? (example small private school to Gtech, UIUC, MIT,etc.)</p>
<p>I can only speak to my experience, which is not recent … lol, but I came from a very small state school (BGSU), and my husband came from a private school (rose hulman), and neither one of us had difficulty getting into the graduate school of our choice. We were in instant contact with the people in the dept. we wanted to work with, and they, in turn, found the money to support us. As I said, at first I was supported through the biology department where I taught for them … but my H was always supported on research money his major professor had available to him. H never taught; he solely worked on projects. I taught for awhile and then became a research assis for my major professor once she graduated a couple of other people she was already supporting. If they want you, they’ll help you find ways to get support. (referring to graduate school … not med or law or anything like that which i know nothing about)</p>
<p>zebes</p>
<p>u’ll only get support if you are the best, or if what you are studying is not popular, meaning that there is a shortage in America.</p>
<p>kb10, that may be more true now, just because of the competition for jobs within the civil engineering field as a whole right now. It used to be, though, that if you came from a fairly strong undergraduate program, had some work/research experience, had a good GRE math score, and had a 3.5 GPA or above, then you’d have a reasonable shot at landing a paid position at about half of the top ten grad programs in civil engineering.</p>
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<p>Sadly in research it can be the exact opposite. If you’re not studying what’s popular you can have a pretty hard time finding money. I know with the new administration all the people that had been working on hydrogen storage technologies are now scrounging for money since solar has been the DoE’s latest push.</p>
<p>by popular, i meant how popular it is among the students, generally things that are not lucrative, there has to be some extra incentive/help to attract people there.</p>