For example, if UPenn gave a student $50,000 in aid for undergrad, would he get around the same ballpark for grad school?
Grad school financial aid is much, much different than undergrad financial aid. Check the UPenn website for the degree program you want in order to find out what sort of funding and/or scholarships may (or may not) be available.
Schools that guarantee to meet full need for undergrads like Penn, do not guarantee to meet full need for all grad students.
I could be wrong, but I don’t know any grad school that guarantees to meet full need for all accepted grad students.
NO! It is completely different. Colleges don’t usually give need based aid for grad school, it isn’t common. But larger federal loans are available. Grad scholarships aren’t even available to most people. And sources of funds for Master’s are scarcer than PHDs. PHD is often funded via a teaching or research commitment. It all really depends on what program you are looking at.
And with graduate work, you really have to look at the type of program. Lots of times, we say “graduate and professional school” because many degrees–MBA, MPA, DPT, DNP, MD, PharmD, JD, etc are professional degrees. They really train you for a profession. The aid offered at these types of programs is very different than the aid offered at MA/PhD programs.
You really have to talk about specific programs when you talk about grad school aid, and even then, it is nothing like undergrad it. I have never encountered a school where the aid is need based. And often merit aid comes in the form of a job.
Grad school aid is much different. Not all programs have aid, and the aid that is given is usually due to MERIT.
That said, I think grad school is more expensive in some ways because often the housing is more expensive…but that’s not always the case. It just seems that once people are in grad school, they don’t share dorm rooms, etc, which can make housing cheaper in undergrad
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooope. From a Penn grad student.
Grad school aid is purely merit-based. Whether you can afford it or not, whether your parents have money or not… no longer matters.
At law schools, there are some scholarships at roughly the top 20 schools only (and for the top applicants there). No financial aid for med school, it’s loans only. MA/PHD: not worth doing if you’re not funded, ie., you don’t have to pay tuition and get a stipend in exchange for teaching.
I was a graduate assistant when I was getting my Master’s degree in accounting. The tuition was higher but for me it was cheaper because the graduate program waived 9 credit hours in exchange for my work for the department, but as other posters have noted different graduate programs and professional schools have different norms. It’s not like undergrad where it’s all just a variation of the same theme.
Housing for me wasn’t any different; dorms were actually more expensive at my school than living in apartment since the on-campus meal plans were compulsory. (IE one semester of living in a dorm paying full price for room and board costs slightly more than one year of living off campus with either no meal plan or a cheaper commuter one). That’s definitely an area-by-area thing though.
ok thanks everybody!!!