<p>@SimpleLife - These is no such thing as a “Period” in academia. There is always an exception to the rule. Occasionally, Masters students get full funding. I knew a friend of mine who did got full funding for some of the semesters of his masters degree off a prof’s grant. It was a special situation. The guy stayed three years and his work got the prof. two journal papers. This student took longer to graduate because he was the CEO (and only employee) of the prof’s SBIR start-up. They had first round funding which is ~$150,000. The Graduate RA with tuition was used as an incentive by the professor for the student stick around longer and run his start-up company. I think the student did pay tuition some of the semesters, but the student was also being paid a full time engineer’s salary from the SBIR money at the same time he was paying tuition…so it all evened out. They ended up getting second round SBIR funding…worth up to $1,000,000…the prof was thrilled.</p>
<p>Your son should keep working with this prof and he should continue to very nicely discuss opportunities with his professor. It is usually a process with these profs that can be slow. Your son shouldn’t ever “demand” something.</p>
<p>@juillet - I will have to think about your helpful post. It seems like it was a trusting relationship between you and your advisor. That’s great. Sometimes relationships with advisors can be flat out adversarial. </p>
<p>When I say “Idealistic”, I’m coming from a perspective where my entire entire graduate school career has been about succeeding while “making do”. I never get the environment I want. Because of this it always feels like there is a greater “risk” of failure. I pretty much agree with your qualities for the ideal grad student. However, even at a top ten engineering school in the nation, an assistant prof is not going to find students with those properties…on top of this, I’m not going to get a job as an assistant prof at a top 10 engineering university. The question is how do you pick and make do with students who are not the ideal?</p>