<p>Hi,</p>
<p>On average, how much is the stipend earned by a full-time pre-master graduate student that works as graduate research assistant or graduate teaching assistant?</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>There really is no “average.” I mean, there may be some comprehensive resource out there that has calculated the arithmetic mean of GRA stipends, though I doubt it. But what your stipend is really depends entirely on 1) your field 2) your institution and 3) your location, and not necessarily in that order. </p>
<p>Location counts a lot. So $22,000 is not enough to live on in NYC, but may be enough in West Lafayette or Urbana-Champaign. Also, TAs and RAs may not get paid the same amount. Finally, it’s not clear if by “pre-masters” you mean a PhD student in the first 2 years of their program or a master’s student. The answer for an MA student in your field may be “zero,” because MA students may be unlikely to get funding in your field. In other fields MS students get nearly as much, if not as much, as graduate students. So it depends.</p>
<p>If you want to know what your stipend is/will be, simply ask the university to which you are applying, “What is the monthly/annual amount that GRAs usually get for their stipend?” A better question is, “What is the amount that <em>I</em> will get paid for <em>my</em> stipend,” because you may be getting more or less than the usual for any reason. But if you are in the application stage, you may only be able to ask more generally.</p>
<p>And compare that against the cost of living for the area, and see if it is enough to live on. If not, decide whether or not you are willing to borrow money to supplement the stipend so you can survive. (If this is a PhD program I would say the answer should almost always be no, but MA programs are often unfunded so any funding is a good thing.)</p>
<p>I meant master’s students, MS program.
Thank you for your reply!</p>