<p>Hi, I'm a high-school senior wishing to pursue mathematics in my undergraduate education. However, in order to make a suitable choice for my undergraduate institution, I think it is necessary to know the financial situation I will be looking at for grad school. If I get into a top-15 grad school, will my tuition and fees most likely be waived or made up for by grants or something like that? Would there be opportunities for me not to further multiply the debt already incurred by undergrad?</p>
<p>Thanks, and please be brutally honest. It's better that I be disappointed now than utterly destitute 9 years from now.</p>
<p>Its way too early to begin thinking about graduate school. You haven’t even taken a single college level math class yet. Its not for everyone!</p>
<p>Most math majors who pursue PhD’s receive funding (tuition is waved, and they get a monthly stipend + health insurance). </p>
<p>However, I also don’t understand why this should have an impact on which school you choose to attend as an undergraduate. If you are very serious about getting a PhD in math, you should be applying to graduate schools all across the country; not just the one you got your undergrad. at.</p>
<p>I can’t speak specifically to math programs, but it is pretty common for tuition to be waived. You often get a stipend as well, but this can really vary from program to program and place to place. Sometimes, your stipend is guaranteed for several years (typically 3-5), but other times you are basically in a competition with your peers for continued support. What you have to do (in terms of teaching responsibilites) varies as well.</p>
<p>Typically you are better off in the sciences than you are in the humanities, but I’ve known many students who managed to get through grad school with no or very minimal loans.</p>
<p>As an example, the University of Rochester’s website says that you will be supported for 4 (and often for 5) years. Most students get a tuition waiver and a stipend of $16,000-$18,000. In exchange, you have to be a good student, lead three recitation sections (for the same class) each week, prepare for the sections, do some grading, etc.</p>
<p>Thanks both of you for your prompt replies.</p>
<p>@JamesMadison</p>
<p>I know it is an early time to be thinking about math grad school, and it is actually quite likely that I won’t want to do that by the end of undergrad, I just want to know that my current aim is feasible. The reason I’m worrying about undergrad is because I have been accepted to schools ranked very highly in mathematics, but they will cost a lot more than going to a decent state school for free. While I could help work off a lot of this tuition, if grad school was another ~5 years of paying tons of cash, I wouldn’t be able to take it. Also, let me make it clear that I want to go to one of these better schools not because of pride or anything, but simply because I really, really want to get involved in math and quality math research at whatever institution I attend.</p>
<p>If, on the other hand, all I have to do for graduate school is forgo a bit of luxury in exchange for an atmosphere of intense learning, then by all means I would see it as desirable (at the moment, again.) The only worry was being hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt because I wanted to go to grad school.</p>
<p>Believe me, for an undergraduate education, an elite university is just not worth the cost. You can get involved with quality math research even at your state school, where you will meet some VERY smart people who simply chose to forgo financial suicide and to stay in state.</p>
<p>@JamesMadison – that completely depends on your financial situation. I have friends at Yale who chose it over their state flagship because it was cheaper. If your family makes less than $200k a year, HYP will give you financial aid, and if your fam makes less than ~$70k (depending on the school) you go for free, all grants, no loans. </p>
<p>Also, whether you can get involved in quality research at your state school depends on the state. If you’re in California or Michigan, obviously. Even in Ohio or Georgia, there are great options. But there are a number of states without particularly good state schools, in which case it might be wise to explore other options.</p>
<p>Just for reference, if you get to the point where you have to pay for a Masters (in a mathematics field), most programs from highly ranked state schools currently cost about $25,000. In another 4 or 5 years you could probably expect those costs to rise another 5-10%.</p>
<p>If you can get in-state tuition that will probably be cut in half.</p>
<p>Private schools might be a different story. I haven’t looked into the costs of private grad schools. Realize that most private schools have some kind of religious affiliation (mainly Catholic), so they tend not to offer grad programs in the sciences. So you are pretty much down to Ivy League schools or large state schools (research schools) for the top math programs.</p>
<p>Of course, as most people stated above, that majority of people getting the PhD in a science related field get funding.</p>
<p>My H is a math professor at USC, a private university. It is indeed (at least presently) still the case that the majority of students going for a PhD in mathematics get a funding package. How generous that package will be and for how long will vary by the institituion. You are no doubt aware of the financial pressures being brought to bear on public universities, and whether that will result in cut backs in grad student funding remains to be seen.</p>
<p>BTW, it still remains that if you are a talented woman in the field, you will have an edge. Universities are still looking to diversify in this area with their math department, as there appear to be realtively fewer women in STEM fields going into M.</p>
<p>Just looking at the top programs on US News, there are tons of great private universities on the list. In the top 25, there are 7 ivys, 8 private universities, and 10 public universities.</p>
<p>I didn’t say there weren’t private schools on the list. What I did say is that many private schools with religious affiliations tend to not offer grad degrees in mathematics and the sciences. </p>
<p>The top 20 grad programs for math are all made up from the Ivy’s (or close to Ivy, like UChicago, Stanford, NYU) or large state research schools. I didn’t see a single religiously affiliated school in the top 20.</p>
<p>“I didn’t see a single religiously affiliated school in the top 20.”</p>
<p>You’re wrong. I used USNWR’s mathematics rankings. Here are schools in the top 50 that have practice based religion degrees (usually including M.Div.)–I’m only counting schools that prepare one for careers in ministry (thus, M.Div. counts, MA in religious studies doesn’t.)</p>
<h1>2 Harvard</h1>
<h1>6 Chicago</h1>
<h1>10 Yale</h1>
<h1>24 Duke</h1>
<h1>46 Boston University</h1>
<h1>46 Notre Dame</h1>
<p>(Arguably, #40 Brandeis could be counted as religious, considering the high amount of Jewish scholarship there.)</p>
<p>I could say something about your claims in your previous post (most private universities are religious? And Catholic?), but I’m not sure it would do any good.</p>
<p>Whoa. Most private schools are not affiliated with a religion, although some are.<br>
And just because a university has a Catholic affiliation, it doesn’t mean that it won’t offer graduate degrees in the sciences. Schools like Notre Dame and Villanova are known mostly for their undergraduate education not because they are Catholic but because that’s where the university chose to focus. </p>
<p>And divinity programs should not be a measure of whether a university is affiliated with a religion. Harvard is about as secular an institution as a university can be.</p>
<p>Your statement implies that Catholics are anti-science, whether you meant that or not. The top Catholic universities wouldn’t have the reputation that they do if they didn’t teach science well.</p>
<p>I should add that historically all the early US universities, including the Ivies, were founded as religious schools because that was the main purpose of higher education in Colonial times. But all those schools became secular centuries ago. Some, like William and Mary, became public.</p>