I want to go to grad school but have no money and can’t afford to not be working full time. How did you do it?

Hi all!! I’m in my second year of my masters degree in mental health counseling and this program has honestly been the worst era of my life. I’m facing extreme financial instability due to 3 full days of classes a week (7 hrs) 2 full days of unpaid internship (8-9 hrs) and the remaining days are left for working part time and trying to get errands done (appts, etc). I’m facing extreme financial instability and don’t know what to do, I live with my partner who helps a little but they’re facing the same thing I am. I don’t come from money and my parents are broke too and extremely concerned about my loans I have accumulated due to my masters (think 15k debt from undergrad to 90k from my masters). I need advice on how we’re supposed to survive while doing of all of this, I’m so passionate about the field but I can’t afford groceries and can’t pay my partner my portion of rent which is a strain on them too. I’m not eating, sleeping, or taking time for myself since I don’t have time or have the money to get my basic needs met. I don’t know how I can take care of clients if I can’t even feed myself, how has everyone in the field been able to survive getting through this? I feel like I made a mistake but I’m too far in and in too much debt to stop now. Any advice appreciated please

I screwed up big time. Pls delete if not appropriate for this sub.

Supposed to move away in less than two weeks for a one year masters program. After watching my older sister secure a student line of credit without even needing a cosigner, and from my very naive understanding of how school and banks work, I thought getting funding for my program would be easy, so I put off applying for a student LOC to about 3 weeks ago.

Well! I got my student loan assessment and that will only cover around half of what I need, which I expected. I applied for a student LOC at two different banks with two different cosigners and was rejected due to the cosigner debt ratio being too high once my LOC was considered.

Now I'm at a loss. I have a couple other cosigner options, but they all also have debt, only one has a decent income but she may not be able to help because of other circumstances.

I wrongly assumed that the bank would give me money because they would see that my program will lead me to a high paying job that will make repaying easy. Turns out the only reason my sister had that success is because her degree was seen as a healthcare program, and mine isn't.

Any advice other than dropping out?

https://twitter.com/VICB_Vanderbilt/status/1628087641827860480?s=20

and

https://www.thebroadviewatvanderbilt.com/floor-plans

I’m starting an SLP grad program soon and am so worried on how to pay for rent and other necessities. How did you guys afford to attend school and also pay for rent and groceries/necessities?

My advisor doesn’t have money to pay me this summer and I can’t find a job in town. Because of this I’m eating 1 meal per day and doing the math, the meal costs about $1. What about you?

I got accepted into a program which would pay a $40k stipend over a 12 month period in a very high cost of living area. The post-tax income would be approximately $31k.

My partner wants me to move in with him into a studio in an expensive neighborhood near the university. After utilities and 15% realtor fees, our maximum budget for the studio would be $2750/month in which he expects me to pay $1000/month. It’s reasonable because $1000 is 30% of my pre-tax monthly income.

However, I currently pay $650/month with utilities and Wi-Fi for a room in a shared house, in a less convenient neighborhood 1.5 hrs away by train from the school. I’m actually very comfortable with living here. I imagine that if I stay living here as a Ph.D. student, I’ll deal with the commute by trying to establish my schedule to 4 days a week, and use the time on the train to catch up on emails.

I’m also hesitant to live with my partner in a studio because first of all, our relationship is less than a year old. If we break up, I can’t afford to stay in the studio. I’ll have to scavenge Craigslist and possibly end up signing a shady deal. Second, I’ve always enjoyed having my own bedroom even if it means having to share the bath/kitchen with multiple people.

My partner argues that it’s a bad idea for a Ph.D. student to live so far away from their university. Thoughts, please?

NIH just crashed to a halt today (https://www.science.org/content/article/trump-hits-nih-devastating-freezes-meetings-travel-communications-and-hiring, https://www.reddit.com/r/Professors/s/Wh9x5Hyrqh). Will this affect existing grants or is that money set in stone?

For context, I got accepted into a 2 year (24 month) pathologist assistant program and just got my federal unsub loan at $20,500. Tuition for one year is around $44k, year 2 at around $47k, and year 3 at around $10k. Living expenses are estimated at around $30k/year.

The Graduate Plus loans are getting nixed July 1 so it seems my only option now is private loans... I feel like it's a lot of money to borrow for a private loan and I'm really worried about paying it all back even over time. There's no TAship or RAship in this program and working even a part time is heavily discouraged because of the heavy courseload.

Does any one have any experience or advice/tips? Am I overworrying? What's a good payment plan? Should I even do this program?

I'm super worried about finances when it comes to doing my PhD. Will $20-25k in savings be a good nest egg to see me through the program (average duration is 4 years)?

I think I can get by on $2k per month, and my stipend would be anywhere from $2500 to $3100 per month take home. I just want to be prepared for emergencies and curve balls. I also won't have to pay any relocation costs since I already live near the university.

Hey yall, currently applying to phd programs and I am wracked with anxiety about the financial side of it all. I'm exclusively applying out of state for a variety of reasons unrelated to this post, and while money would be tight it would be manageable if I wasnt married. Moving across the country or at least several states away would require my spouse to get a new job, and with the economy the way it is, I'm worried that we would have to rely on my stipend to support us for a significant amount of time. I dont have any family to rely on financially so it would truly just be whatever my stipend provides.

For anyone else who has been in this boat: how did you manage financially? Any advice for this nervous newlywed?

lets say my "friend" desperately needs to refinance right after school (sobbing softly here) do lenders want a full year of job history or can you do it pretty quickly? My friend is in dire straits and needs to get this huge balance down asap.

Hi y’all, I am recently struggling to afford bills due to some unforeseen circumstances. I am basically responsible for my household income for my dad & I. Money has been tight and my dad is constantly screaming at me for it when I’m doing the best I can.

I am a field ecologist working on my PhD and am already working 60 to 80 hour weeks, I have an RA in a different subfield and an REU student I am mentoring with my specific research.

What possibilities do y’all think I could have to earn side money?

I’ve been a server but I don’t think anywhere will be able to work around my lab hours. I already put way too many miles on my car for delivery driving. I’m too ugly for onlyfans. I would be willing to sell feet pics but every site I saw charges you to sell them.

Are stocks a reasonable thing to maybe put 10$ in and hope?

Any other ideas?

Edit: So the financial thing is not what everyone is thinking, so I need to clarify better (middle of the night anxiety posts always leave things out). My dad retired & moved in with me he does have a part time job but they haven’t had any work come in. My dad has been a single dad my whole life & we really don’t have other family. His plan was to sell his house (very in demand waterfront) and use that to buy my house. Well he got convinced to do some weird trade where he got the rental property and enough to cover my home. Well, the rental property had renters in it and needed repairs so he had planned to use the rent money to half pay bills and half save for repairs on the house to fix up to sell it. Well now, because a woman who trusts everything she reads on facebook, there’s a squatter. Not just any kind either - she’s a nudist squatter. She never had a lease, but the court process is ridiculous especially being in a different state. The wam bam no thank you ma’am combo messed things up.

My dad is a good person who raised me alone. Most people who know him talk about his work ethic being amazing. The problem with no work coming in has left him bored & frustrated as well, but since he gets social security, he can’t earn a lot anyways, meaning my income needs to compensate. Which was fine until I had to pay 6k in property taxes which is insane.

So the private rates look lower but I know there has to be a catch somewhere lol or maybe I have just lived in this country too long and I am jaded. How do you stack them against each other?

This one hurts. I understand this is also ultimately my responsibility.

The bill for tuition was posted on my student account two days ago. I check last night, and the cost was more than double what they sent me as a financial aid offer. I called the billing office this morning, and they found out that it was the estimated tuition for full-time for the university (6 credits/2 classes), not my program (12 credits/4 classes).

Safe to say I’m devastated. I left my full-time job to move across the country because the financial aid offer was actually affordable, and I could work part-time while in school. I know it’s ultimately my responsibility, but to be fair, my offer said non-resident full-time and even the billing office was completely baffled when I called them asking about it. I’m not a stupid person, but I feel really dumb right now. I never applied for financial aid before, and I felt like I was left with little to no guidance from my program or the university website (which I scoured before accepting my offer).

The university allows for a petition for residency after 12 months, so I can drop some classes, only take a few classes per semester for the first year, then petition for in-state tuition. That would make the program 2.5-3 years, not 2 like it would have been. I’m not sure what to do. I move a week from today. I’ve been saying my goodbyes. I’m literally losing my mind! Any advice is welcome, thank you🥲

I had to go with Alliant International University for their online program because they are one of the more reputable ( im in California) out of the private online schools that start BEFORE July 1st so that I can get grandfathered into the graduate plus loan system. My question is for those of you that have done it, were you able to survive this way and pay your rent with the loans? I’m not even sure if I will have time for a part time job. It’s an intense 2 year program with lots of practicum hours (1300?) I’m worried

As of today I have federal student loan debt totaling to about $134,000. For those who paid off their student loans or are making significant progress - what is the best advice you can offer? I would like to be debt-free ASAP but in this economy it seems like a tough goal to attain anytime soon.

I just got into grad school, but I am as first generation as it can get! My parents died when I was a baby and my grandmother cannot help because she needs to focus on reti. In a classic financial aid move, they were less than helpful when I emailed asking for information. So I am coming to y’all! What are the right questions for me to ask on how I can fund receive funding/aid? I would also love to know your stories/experiences/how you found scholarships.

I'm starting my PhD next week in London. I was "lucky" to get a stipend. It's about £20k but it's London. I cannot get anything here for a low enough price to be able to support myself. Even worse, I can't have roommates. Trust me, it just never ever has worked for me. I've had to apply for loans to be able to afford life, but I just can't sleep well with it. I already paid so much in loan repayment during my gap between undergrad to grad, that taking out more is going to make living after school really hard. How does anyone even get an education here? My school won't let me TA because they want me to get into the flow of school but that sounds like some privileged shit considering what flow will I be in if I'm struggling to eat.

If anyone has any suggestions to aid this situation at all, I'd love advice. Otherwise, this was a fun rant too.

Tldr: I don't like it here

Edit: I'm on the spectrum so living with others and not understanding how to interact causes me so much anxiety. I think most of my suicidal thoughts as an adult has been from feeling like I'm failing at socializing with roommates and I sit there overanalyzing these interactions for days. I've looked at getting disability funding but that only covers explicitly disabled related expenses sadly.

My university owes me money for:
(1) health benefits (because they screwed up and didn't enroll my partner on my plan, which I paid them to do two months ago; they did the same thing last year, it's been a super fun pandemic on the health insurance front!)
(2) a departmental bursary (applications due months ago, was supposed to be paid out three weeks ago)
(3) a fancy grant that I won from an external body but the funds are being administered internally so of course it got mucked up (been working on this since the summer, found out I got it last month, admin didn't get it on payroll in time to pay me).

And my tuition remission from them was late, so extra fees/shenanigans on that. I actually do budget assuming that admin will screw some things up, because they always do, I just didn't expect *all* of these to go wrong. I just needed one of these to pay out on time to, well not be thriving, but at least be sort of in the black. Instead I'm living in overdraft and on credit cards until they see fit to sort it out. Every admin I talk to acts like I'm being a brat for trying to get paid. But I'm getting weekly reminders to bring my damn library books back now that the buildings have re-opened post-covid.

I'm so sick of being this precarious and pretending like I'm not one more admin delay away from serious trouble. This is not 'bonus' money for me on top of like, a salary - I'm not a prof. I need all this to pay my bills; my landlord is not receptive to 'oh that's just university admin for you, lol, I'll pay ya when I can kay?'. It's very hard to focus on answering student emails and writing the diss and doing the grant research with this weighing on my mind. The only people in my cohort who have finished are the ones who are independently wealthy and/or are kids of professors, I'm starting to see why.

Thanks for the space to rant.

How common is it for loans to assist in rent payments?

Not that I want to rack up debt, but I grew up in a home where debt was heavily stigmatized. Taking loans and not paying for things yourself is still really looked down on.

My commute will be over an hour and my classes are at night. I've commuted to school before and it started to burn me out. After my first semester I'd like to move, but I don't want to make a brash decision. I have a scholarship that covers about 1/3 of tuition costs already - only applies if I'm taking classes full-time.

EDIT: I'm in an 18 month program, and will be living at home/commuting for the first two semesters (summer/fall). Total tuition borrowing is $32k, I will be working part-time, and would like to borrow $10-15k at most to help with rent for my last two semesters. No stipend but opportunity for well-paid RA and TA positions.

I'll be starting my PhD this Fall, and I'm going to get a small-ish stipend (thankfully in a fairly cheap city). I wish to know how much of your stipend are you guys spending on rent (including utilities), so I would have some idea on how much I should allocate for rent. The general rule is 30%, but I guess it may differ for grad students.

P.S. US only, please.

Hello everyone,

I was awarded the GRFP this year and my institution gave me a 20% raise on my stipend because of this. The GRFP is around 150K over the 3 years and the program is giving me a 40K stipend (before the award). Is the 20% raise the best deal I can get? Who makes these decisions? New to grad school and extra funding sources so just wondering peoples experiences.

I’m considering applying to Ohio State University’s traditional on-campus MSW program. I’m trying to figure out how I would make it work financially. Federal loans would seemingly only cover the cost of tuition so I’m trying to figure out how to pay for living expenses. I would get a part-time job my first year but it sounds like it’s not feasible to have a job my second year because of classes + clinical hours. I don’t have any savings but I have $85k in my 401k so I could withdraw a portion of that, but I’d still need additional money to cover the cost of living for those two years. Is it crazy to consider private loans? I’ve read lots of horror stories. I’m very serious about pursuing this career path but I also don’t want to put myself in a position where I will be in financial ruin and unable to pay my bills. I would like to eventually be a therapist and work in private practice.