Financing your education

[cammie790]

Please someone tell me the following:

1. How in the world are you financing your education? I am so surprised at how little some of these programs allot for scholarship/fellowship support. Someone once told me that most Phd programs pay to have you get the education. Not so from what I've seen.
2. How should I budget for my education? What are some of the surprises that you didn't budget for? What should I keep in mind?
3. Do you know of any good online grad. school calculators or other online financing tools?
4. Any good scholarship websites? (I'm aware that many deadlines may have passed for 2007-08, but I'll get a head start for the coming years).

Thank you, thank you, thank you!


Many thanks!

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[Ollie123]

Afraid I can't help with 2-4 (though I'd love to see the answer for 4 as well).

With regards to #1 - are you looking at PhDs or PsyDs? Understand that nowhere is going to pay you WELL to go to school, but I'm not sure what schools you are looking at that they aren't paying at all.

I applied to 13 PhD programs this year. Every single one offered at least 80% tuition waived (most more like 90-100%) and every one offered a stipend between 12k and 20k. If you're having troubles finding schools that do, get the Insider's Guide to Graduate Programs in Clinical and Counseling Psychology (I may have screwed the title up a bit but type that into amazon and it will pop up).

It lists all the programs and tells you what their financing is like. I seem to be plugging this book a lot lately. I swear I'm not working for them, I just really liked it!

I'd never go if I had to pay for it myself, I still don't know how people do that. If I'm going to throw down over 100k for school, I'd go into medicine, law, or some field where I'll be guaranteed I won't have to struggle to pay it back. Props to those committed enough to the field do it, but given the variety of options in psychology where you DON'T incur much debt, it isn't for me.

 

[irish80122]

1. How in the world are you financing your education? I am so surprised at how little some of these programs allot for scholarship/fellowship support. Someone once told me that most Phd programs pay to have you get the education. Not so from what I've seen.
It all depends on what you want to do and what degree you are going for, most of the PhDs are funded and most of the PsyD programs are not funded. Some PhD programs really have awful funding, but overall that does hold pretty true. As for how you know the difference, some programs will post that information on their website. For others (I would say the majority) it is brought up at the interviews. If there are any programs you have in mind, ask now before people leave the boards so that you hopefully can find someone who interviewed at that school or happens to know about it.
2. How should I budget for my education? What are some of the surprises that you didn't budget for? What should I keep in mind?
Some of this depends on what type of program, once again, but I think one thing you should keep in mind is the cost of living. Sometimes a stipend which looks good on the surface really ends up being quite weak when you look at where the school is located.
3. Do you know of any good online grad. school calculators or other online financing tools?
Not that I know of but I was lucky enough to receive tuition remission + stipend. Sorry
4. Any good scholarship websites? (I'm aware that many deadlines may have passed for 2007-08, but I'll get a head start for the coming years).
Are you planning on going to grad school this year? Sorry, I wrote this assuming you were going a year from now. Anyways, again not that I know of. I think Fullbright scholarships (if I am thinking of the right ones) allow you to study in Europe for free. There are funded masters programs as well (hard to find but they exist) so you may keep an eye out for those. Sorry, I just have no idea where you are in the process so I don't know how to help, but I hope that helped some.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!


Many thanks!

 

[JockNerd]

Please someone tell me the following:

1. How in the world are you financing your education? I am so surprised at how little some of these programs allot for scholarship/fellowship support. Someone once told me that most Phd programs pay to have you get the education. Not so from what I've seen.
2. How should I budget for my education? What are some of the surprises that you didn't budget for? What should I keep in mind?
3. Do you know of any good online grad. school calculators or other online financing tools?
4. Any good scholarship websites? (I'm aware that many deadlines may have passed for 2007-08, but I'll get a head start for the coming years).

Thank you, thank you, thank you!


Many thanks!

1. I've got a tuition remission and a fellowship. There was no way I could afford tuition at a US grad school, so funding was a primary concern. Like others said, most PhD programs will fund at least part of your work. If you restrict your search to only well-funded programs, you'll be in the clear. Check out your prospective schools' websites. In "Student Data" or "full disclosure data" they'll list how many applicants got into the program, and how many of those were funded. The Insider's Guide is useful as well (if you're going into Clinical/Counseling; I'm not familiar with the guides for other areas).

2. Depends what you mean by budget? Budget to live? Well, you won't be living it up while in grad school, but you won't go into debt if you make sure you get in somewhere funded.

3. I looked around for that sort of thing last year too. I couldn't find one online

4. Most schools' websites have a student financial page that lists different scholarships and fellowships. If it's a concern, ask the program how well students are funded. Don't think it rude; schools don't want people to apply when there's simply no way they could go there, or they might have to leave to program for financial reasons. They should be up front about it.

The good stuff (big fellowships and assistanceships) aren't really something you can check up on, in my experience. You don't apply for a fellowship, the department puts you in for it when you apply and you'd get it with your offer. Assistanceships depend on what the prof. has available at that time, and they often don't know until well after applications are due.

 

[cammie790]

Thanks so much for the input guys. To answer some of the earlier questions, they are all PhD programs in NY and NJ. One school has very little funding and can only offer about 5K whereas the other will pay for 1/2 the total cost of tuition. I know to some it should be a slam dunk decision, but I'm trying to look at the overall picture and not solely the cost. Doing so I know may come to haunt me in the long run as the salary for a psychologist is not that high.

 

[Ollie123]

Can I ask what schools they were? I looked at quite a few NY schools since that's where I'm from (though in the end I only applied to Stony Brook) and every single one offered funding/waivers. I know all the SUNY universities offer decent funding and they're generally all pretty good schools as well - maybe take a look at those?

Look around and keep your options open. Its great that you don't want money to be the deciding factor but if you can go to a great school AND get funding, so much the better

 

[slickvic]

i just want to make sure i am understanding; some of the phd school weill wave a good portion of tuition, meaning not make you pay for it, i had no idea, so i just want to be sure, i have that book everyone speaks of but i though i misread that part, i didnt think it could be true.

 

[Ollie123]

Nope, you read it correctly

If you want a PsyD or a program that focuses primarily on practice, you may have to pay.

If you're more a research type like myself, it really is as good as it sounds. Chances are not only will you pay almost nothing to go to graduate school, the school will in fact pay you between 10 and 20k a year to go there. Admittedly you would generally experience a higher standard of living if you worked in the fast food industry, but still, debt is VERY minimal.

 

[JockNerd]

slickvic-- I didn't believe it either at first! I think a lot of people, after putting down big money on their undergrad, don't think that more school could possibly be FREE.

 

[psychRA]

The best advice I got during this whole process was to apply only to schools that offered 100% tuition remission and a stipend.