My daughter just completed her Masters at UCO and Im trying to convince her to get her PhD. She has never got any FASFA, Grants or Scholarship money. She has about 22k in loans from OSU and UCO and dont think she wants to bury herself in any more debt. She realizes that the payoff would probally be in getting a Phd. Both of her degrees are in early childhood education FWIW. Any help insight would be appreciated.
PhD Anyway to get money to go to school ?
- Thread starter 737poke
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Depending on the institution and the program, your daughter can get it paid for and even make a little money. My wife is in Ag Econ at Purdue and her school is completely paid for and she's even got a salary as a student (although they call them "staff" at Purdue).
I'm over here just trying to convince mine to go to trade school instead of waiting tables and tending bar for the rest of their lives.
Funny story, My daughter was a soph in high school and we fought about her homework till she was in tears and I wanted to choke the **** out of her. This went on nite after nite till one day i had had enough. I told her this is your life you do what you want. You had better learn " would you like fries with that sir? I just quit helping her. we were on the verge of hating one another anyway. About the time she was to graduate high school she come and asked me if she went to college if I would help her pay for it? I thought to myself, she wont last the semester so yea Ill help you all I can. Graduated OSU with a teaching degree and Friday graduated UCO with Masters in early childhood ed. I would of bet the farm she would have never made it the first semester let alone get where she is.
She would kind of like to go on but the tuition is a big problem. We dont know how peeps get all this money to go to school cause we have applied all the time and have never got a dime.
She would kind of like to go on but the tuition is a big problem. We dont know how peeps get all this money to go to school cause we have applied all the time and have never got a dime.
Like @EvilPOKES said, she may be able to go to school for free, and even receive a very small salary if she teaches some undergrad courses while working on her PhD. I'm guessing it depends on the particular school and her area of study, but I do know this is quite common for PhD candidates.
Depending on the area of study there can be a good chance for a graduate assistantship where the student either teaches labs/classes or works on a research project. If the area has a lot of gen ed courses (like intro composition, math, history, etc) there can be a lot of assistantship available. In our department (at OSU) we actually are short 1-2 students for the spring term and we are paying students extra to teach extra labs, although this is not what we would prefer.
If you are curious, I am a Geography Professor at OSU, and I currently fund 2 research assistants on a contract research project, and I supervise 3 TA's in our GIS Computer Labs. An MS student in our Department gets a stipend of $1100 per month plus all tuition, and a PhD student gets a stipend of $1540 per month. The student does have to pay fees, but 6 credits of tuition is paid each term, which is the normal load for a graduate assistant working 20 hours per week. In my personal case 25 plus years ago, I never paid to go to graduate school, and always got paid a stipend and taught labs or classes (labs first, then a class), which is a good experience for a student. The schools I attended paid all tuition and fees, but as fees have risen what OSU does is becoming more common - I was lucky, I went thru 4 degree programs, including the PhD, and never took out a loan.
If we are talking about areas like business and engineering then the availability of assistantships can be pretty limited since there are no freshman level courses for 1st or 2nd year grad students to work in (like in lab, etc).
I hope this helps.
If you are curious, I am a Geography Professor at OSU, and I currently fund 2 research assistants on a contract research project, and I supervise 3 TA's in our GIS Computer Labs. An MS student in our Department gets a stipend of $1100 per month plus all tuition, and a PhD student gets a stipend of $1540 per month. The student does have to pay fees, but 6 credits of tuition is paid each term, which is the normal load for a graduate assistant working 20 hours per week. In my personal case 25 plus years ago, I never paid to go to graduate school, and always got paid a stipend and taught labs or classes (labs first, then a class), which is a good experience for a student. The schools I attended paid all tuition and fees, but as fees have risen what OSU does is becoming more common - I was lucky, I went thru 4 degree programs, including the PhD, and never took out a loan.
If we are talking about areas like business and engineering then the availability of assistantships can be pretty limited since there are no freshman level courses for 1st or 2nd year grad students to work in (like in lab, etc).
I hope this helps.
Here's my first question: What does she want to do? Can she do it without a PhD? If so, don't get one. It's not worth the damage to your sanity. That's where I always start with my students who tell me they want a PhD. There are other considerations as well, like market saturation, the difference in income between a master's and a doctorate, etc. But in general, my advice, as one who has been through this particular war: if you don't need it, don't get it.
This, this, and this. Friend of mine is taking this route. He gets to work on his PhD while earning a meager salary. I think books and living expenses are his only cost.
I concur--but can only speak in terms of humanities. If a student asks me to write a recommendation for a doctoral program, they must first enter into a several-week long process of talking me into it. The PhD should never cost you anything, and if you don't get full tuition, health insurance AND a cost of living stipend, then you're being exploited. Well you'll be exploited even with those thngs, but to a more manageable extent.
Stipends for TA'ing in humanities run $15-20k per year (more at some elite programs). The real cost is that you're out of the market for 6-8 years. You're not saving anything and you're not funding your retirement. Folks in your field with BAs and MAs meanwhile are gaining experience and contacts (and a real paycheck), or have started a family. A partner with a stable well-paying job helps.
If a student convinces me that they will enter a crippling existential crisis without a PhD, or if they're independently wealthy, then maybe I'll write the letter.
Again, this is all from a humanities (history) PhD perspective, where the traditional job market for PhDs (academia) is a nightmare with ~75 to 200+ applicants for each position. For non-academic jobs, PhDs compete for spots with MAs with more experience. The situation is different for non-humanities.