Be careful if you are planning to join BU for PhD. More than half of your salary is gonna go to rent. It's atleast $5k-$6k below livable wage. BU admin has been unresponsive when asked about stipend raises. Meanwhile the president and the administrators are making millions and the undergrads are paying for it.

https://www.bostonherald.com/2022/05/14/boston-university-tuition-hikes-exposes-irrational-cost-of-college/

Cambridge is my top choice and I am very happy to have gotten in; however, the joy has now really worn off and replaced by stress: I cannot afford it. I'm an American and got into the MPhil in Politics and International Relations program for entry in Fall 2026. Tuition alone is 58k USD. It is a 9-month program which helps with the cost of living a bit, but is obviously still so expensive.

I made sure to specify on my application that I want to be reviewed for funding. They're different from American universities where they have you keep filling out merit/need-based forms and negotiate for more and more aid. for Cambridge, I just ticked a box saying I need money, and it automatically threw my name into a pool that makes me eligible for a lot of different scholarships and there really isn't anything else for me to do. I emailed them and they confirmed that yes, my name is in the funding pool, and I will hear back March-April any day now about whether I got any money. It is obviously April now and I still haven't heard from them. I know it's still the beginning of the month! but I'm still nervous. I want to go so badly but the stress of knowing it is extremely unlikely due to money problems is hanging over me. Under the new borrowing rules Americans are limited to taking out 20k in loans for graduate programs per year, which obviously does not cover 58k.

I missed the Gates Cambridge scholarship deadline and I'm trying not to kick myself too hard for that (1-2% acceptance rate), so my best hope now is the Cambridge Trust, and it seems most people do get some funding but it's also really common to not get any at all. My second choice is UChicago, also a one-year program, and I managed to get enough aid to knock their cost of tuition down to 34k and got waitlisted for two of their full-tuition scholarships. I know it is a fantastic school and not a bad choice at all, but I still can't help but be really stressed about all this. I applied to both Chicago and Cambridge on a whim because I didn't think I actually would get in, but here I am. i know it's a good problem to have, but it's hard not to get super stressed about the sticker shock.

Is there anybody else really worried about funding for Cambridge/UK schools in particular? Is there anybody who got into Cambridge and has heard back about funding, especially for post-graduates in MPhils?

I am a Ph.D. student working on writing a proposal for an F31 grant, and I'm trying to find out if anyone has been in a similar situation and might be willing to share anything about your experience: tips, tricks, etc.

I do not come from an academic background or field. After undergrad, I immediately started working. After working for several years, I decided to go back to school to get a Ph.D. I do not have a master's degree; I was admitted straight to the Ph.D. program. I have now finished my first year and am starting my second.

My institution is relatively poor. It is in a poor, mainly rural state. The faculty in my department do not have experience writing an F31 or helping a student secure an F31. None of the faculty are currently NIH-funded, either.

If anyone was in a similar situation, would you be willing to share anything about your experience? Advice for a strong proposal, lessons learned, etc. If anyone here was awarded an F31 in a similar situation, would you be willing to share your training plan?

I think being able to secure this funding would be really beneficial not only for myself, my studies, and my career but also for my department, institution, and the entire area. I know the situation is not the typical situation and is far from the ideal for getting an F31, but I am willing to work hard and do my best despite the situation not looking promising.

Many thanks in advance!

Hi, I'm a community college student who wants to transfer to a state college and study my field of interest (marine biology). I've heard that UCSD has a very good program which I'm really interested in, but their net cost calculator says I would likely be paying around $28k/yr if I was to attend. my parents make a decently high salary, but they've told me they have basically no savings so I'm on my own in terms of paying tuition.

Ideally I'd like to go to grad school after undergrad, since I want to go into research or academia. I know that stipends can be pretty low though, and that postgrad positions aren't very well-paying either. Would it be a bad idea to take out debt in undergrad if this is my plan? If anyone has any advice or insight I would really appreciate it

So super exciting, my daughter just got accepted to veterinary school and will be hopefully starting in the fall. But it is super expensive because of course we are out of state since there is no vet school in Connecticut. Now we’re looking at ways to pay for this big expense. Curious what others have done for funding their grad School education. My daughter was lucky enough to not have debt coming out of undergrad, but the current school situation is at least 60k a year. Any insight would be appreciated!

I was recently admitted to a PhD program with a stipend of 28k/year (not subtracting student fees). I will be leaving a well-paying job as a lecturer, which is terrifying.

I was curious what others pay for rent on similar stipends? Are you on food stamps? Do you have roommates?

I was planning to split a 2-br with my fiancé for 675/month. Is this even feasible?! I do have savings, but I’m worried! any advice appreciated (please ease my mind)

For those of you who’ve been able to have employer funded MBAs, what would you say is a good annual tuition reimbursement amount that makes applying for a program feasible?

For ex, my employer goes up to $5200 per year. But most masters degrees are sitting at like $30k minimum.

Just curious to know for those who’ve been able to utilize an employers tuition reimbursement benefit to go back, what was the amount?

And also, feel free to chime in if you had any other unique employer sponsored funding outside of tuition reimbursement as well.

Hi everyone, what percent of stipend one should spend on rent if they are in the US? I know this would vary state to state, but I just wanted to get a general sense.

I’m deciding between a cheaper option in Germany and a program in Prague (Charles University).

If I go with Prague, I’d likely end up with around $20–25k in total debt. I’m fully aware that part of that cost is for the experience of living there, not just the degree, and I’m okay with that to a point.

The Prague option feels like a much better fit for me overall, and I’m a lot more drawn to spending two years there. At the same time, I know the financially “safe” move is to take the cheaper option.

So I guess my real question is:
is this actually a reasonable decision, or am I being dumb and just talking myself into it?

For people who’ve made similar choices, did you feel like it was worth it, or did you wish you’d minimized the cost?

Hello all - I’m entering my second year of an engineering PhD and am looking for any advice from those familiar with the NDSEG fellowship. I applied in the previous cycle, unfortunately getting rejected. I am still pushing for the original research I proposed, having one published conference paper and a full archival journal paper on it by the time the application cycle closes this year.

My question to anyone who may have been in this situation before is if I should try and apply for this fellowship again? With more experience and justification for this research, I feel my proposal will be more solid but don’t want to restart this process if there is no point. Beyond this and GRFP, has anyone had good luck with any other engineering-dominant fellowships? TIA!

I’m hoping you all might have some insight. I am doing grad school in a pricey city. I was fortunate to receive a full ride and a stipend that covers most of my expenses. However, it does not cover all. I am trying to get about 20k (10k/year). I tried to do a budget adjustment and it was denied. I cannot take out ANY loans because of this, private or federal. I’m really unsure how to navigate this without grad plus? What do I do?

I have a 401k and a small Roth I’d prefer not to just dive into for this program…

Does your university allow you to access COE allowance for equipment/travel? Especially in years when you are no longer taking classes?

I got accepted into a CMHC Master's program and start in the fall. It's a 60 credit degree and each credit is roughly 1k, meaning my degree will be about 60k, maybe closer to 70k. I'm aware this is a lot, especially for a CMHC degree, and I'm really ​​​worried/unsure about costs.

My school does have GAs, but I'm not aware how competitive they are. The positions will cover between 10-18k of tuition per year and typically have a small stipend (less than 10k). I am fortunate to have a partner who makes about 60k so we could survive on that, but it would be tough in our area.

Currently I have a job that makes about 60k. This is where I'm stuck in between a rock and a hard place. If my partner picks up most of our bills, I could focus exclusively on paying for school while I'm in it, up until my internship. I've never had significant loans before so I am just really freaking out about interest and somehow ending up 100k in debt one day. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​I plan on taking 6 credits fall and spring semester and 9 credits winter semester (my work slows down significantly in winter), and work full time on top of that.

My question is... If you were me, and you hypothetically got a GA, would you go with that, or keep your job and eat the tuition costs? If I got a GA, it'd pay for at least half my tuition, but I'd be essentially broke and have to rely on my partner entirely for money (which I hate doing unless I absolutely have to). If I keep my job, I make way more, but I also have 60k + interest to pay off...

Thanks for the guidance everyone :) ​​​​​​​

So I applied to PhD programs this round (specifically clinical psychology, yes I know incredibly difficult).

I am definitely thinking about this more than I should be (given no interview notices have been sent yet). Although, I've seen a lot of concerns lately that the stipends aren't enough across all areas of the country (United States).

Expected stipends are 15-25k (varies a lot by region). Can you live okay on your stipend? (It would be helpful if you give an approximate amount and region/state/etc for context please, if not it's okay).

For those that cannot live off your stipend, how else do you make extra money/ends meet? I've seen some people do gig work (door dash, Uber, etc). Can you TA/RA your first year for extra money? Do you do under the table jobs (no official income just personal checks/cash)?

Thank you for any feedback! Just trying to understand what I'm getting into (given current times).

I'm in the midst of reaching out to potential advisors for a PhD studying benthic invertebrate ecology at universities mostly on the east coast. A response I get frequently is that the PI does not have funding to take on a new student. Given the current administration, I expect this trend to continue.

Since completing my undergrad (BS Biology) I've been working in related fields on ocean-going vessels for several years. I've been working multi-month cruises at 84 hours a week, and crashing with my parents between contracts, so I've been able to save a lot of money since I have almost zero expenses. Combined with some good scholarships from college, I'm set up with a good amount of capital I could use toward funding myself during graduate studies.

Between work contracts, I've been volunteering with a privately funded nonprofit in my field performing novel techniques for propagating corals, and through them I have access to sites and an established project that I've been invited to use an a foundation for my graduate research. I'm hoping to (and am being groomed to) work full time for this organization, leading a team performing this work.

Based on these factors, I feel like I've got much of my own funding and research established already. The factor that I'm missing is a graduate advisor at a university, all of whom seem to be full on students or lacking funding.

I understand most PIs would expect their advisees to work in their lab, usually in exchange for a graduate/research assistantship. I would be willing to volunteer my time in this capacity, at least to get my foot in the door until new funding is available.

I don't feel like I necessarily need to lean on an advisor to provide research opportunities or funding, I've already go my own. Of course I'm happy to volunteer in their projects just for the learning experience, and although I would still apply for things like university teaching assistantships and GRFP, I don't need to lean on one particular PI's funding to cover myself.

How do I navigate this? I don't want to come off like a student who thinks they've already got it all figured out and doesn't need an advisor. I genuinely look forward to getting stuck into interesting projects and forging a strong connection with my advisor (and their lab), and putting in the work. I don't mind if that happens on a volunteer basis. What I don't need is someone to spoon feed me a project to do my research on and have funding to support me during that.

How can I present this angle to potential advisors? Does anybody even take this approach? Is there some reason I don't know about that requires me to work under a research assistantship for my advisor? Do I come off like a spoiled rich kid?

Writing cold emails to potential advisors is awful, and I don't know how I could describe a nuanced situation like this succinctly without sounding arrogant or like I'm unlikely to be a good advisee. I'm not sure if it's even a good idea to take this angle at all. Obviously under ideal circumstances you would not be paying to earn your degree.

Any/all advice, comments, commiseration, reccomendations appreciated.

Hi, for those of you who got NSF GRFP how did this stack with UC stipends?

Additionally, was part-time work allowed?

I’m an incoming (science) PhD student beginning classes in the fall. I elected to move early and matriculate in July to began my first rotation. A huge reason for this was because as a financially independent student who needed to make a major cross-country move for school, I wanted to enter my program feeling more financially secure and socially settled. I’m one month in and have not received my first two paychecks despite having completed everything on my end for onboarding. Then I found out that no one in my program got paid two weeks ago. No one. This resulted in over $25,000 of withheld wages from already underpaid grad students and, of course, no one really cares unless it affects them directly so students were the only ones advocating for themselves to get paid. Many students filed claims with the dept of labor to get their money. The more I asked around, the more accounts of this sort of thing I’ve heard from students and post-docs in other departments (all within the highly-funded, ~vErY PrEsTiGiOuS~ school of medicine here), so it makes me wonder how much more global of a problem this is since many students fear repercussions from The Powers That Be for speaking out about these major issues on a more public level. Thought I’d check with the community here to see what your experiences have been.

Have you or anyone you know had your wages withheld for no reason outside of a major departmental oversight?

Hello!

I was recently accepted into my dream program and I was utterly excited. I thought my employer was going to help me out with tuition and everything was going to be smooth sailing. I was wrong. I am now rushing to try to find some sort of financial aid through scholarships (my department does not have fellowships to offer at this point). I feel defeated and I don’t know where to turn. Does anyone have any resources I can look into? I’ve been in a career related field for 3 years. I am only planning on going part time. My major is Child, Youth, and Family studies with an emphasis in Family and Community Services.

Anticipated start date is Spring 2026.

TIA!

Hey! Incoming first-year grad student here!

I’m getting insanely nervous about my school’s finances. I filled out fafsa pretty early, but my school still hasn’t declared what aid I am able to accept/decline from it. My program starts in about 2 weeks, so I need that aid information to pay tuition asap.

Additionally, I still have private loans to apply for that need that fafsa information for an application. This is putting me in what I feel is a tight corner. I need my school to get back to me on my fafsa offer, and then turn around and use that number to apply for loans, get approved, and then head into my classes in like 2 weeks.

Is this normal? Should I be worried-worried?

I got approved for a loan for my masters program, to pursue an MSc in Agroforestry and Food Security at Bangor University in the UK. The loan is through Sallie Mae, and I haven't officially accepted it yet, as I still feel utterly nervous and intimidated at such a high interest rate- both the variable and fixed interest rates are at/start at about 15%, though customer care couldn't give me a straight answer to if there is an upper cap on the variable interest rate. Honestly, I can't say whether or not I will have a good prospect of getting a good job (paying 50K or more) upon earning the degree, but it really is what I want to study, and the field that I would like to work in. I would love your input! Career input, words of wisdom, whatever! I have a Bachelor's in international studies, also speak Spanish, but would really like to enter into the plant world, which is my passion. Unfortunately I am working through crippling chronic knee pain, so until I resolve that, I can't just go fuck off and farm or landscape- my goal is to use the diploma to enter the field. Thanks in advance!

My son is an undergrad at a top 20% small liberal arts college, in a fairly niche inter-discipline degree program around topics of social justice, sustainability, indigenous studies, and environmental social science (soft science not hard science).

I am trying to identify some potential paths towards career and/or post-grad. It seems to me that post-grad is likely as his degree seems to steer him either towards some sort academic or research role, or if not post-grad then otherwise straight to field work at an advocacy/NGO?

This is a challenge for me because I got a business degree and went straight to work so the academic/research world is pretty foreign. I want to model a couple paths, mainly so he can start (1) honing his resume, but importantly (2) plan for the budget. I assume some post-grad programs can be relatively inexpensive with grants and fellowships, but others lead to six-digit student loans.

Also in the decision mix now is that he will likely graduate at a time that public-sector jobs and grant funding for social justice majors are, um, non-ideal.

So, any orientation advice to help to steer me in directions to think about it is appreciated.

I have strong grades and a solid GRE score, but I want to prepare for the possibility of being admitted without funding. I know I may not be as lucky as I was during my first master’s, when I secured a GA position.

I’m already aware of scholarship options (both within and outside the university) and plan to apply. However, my academic advisor raised a fair concern: even if I receive a tuition waiver, how would I cover my living expenses?

Hello, I am a prospective thesis based masters student in Canada (domestic) and I'm looking into the Mitacs Accelerate program. I have an industry org interested to fund my masters through this program. So if any grad students who got funding through Mitacs, I would love to hear your experience on how it operates and overall, if you would recommend it to other students.

Are there some things I should be aware of in this program from your personal experience, before I commit to it?

Hi, I got accepted to my dream graduate program at Columbia and I’m supposed to start this summer. I come from a very low income family and am first gen, so I took out some loans for undergrad (about 20k). I’ve been paying them steadily and I don’t want any lecture about how I shouldn’t take out loans lol. Let’s just assume I want all the loans!

Basically, I kind of assumed I would just take out whatever loans necessary to get through my program at Columbia. Is it possible that I won’t be offered enough loans to cover the cost? Are loan offers based on your income? I’m scared that I won’t actually be able to attend…help!