Postgraduate Education - United States - Funding

Funding

Many departments, especially those in which students have research or teaching responsibilities, offer tuition-forgiveness and a stipend that pays for most expenses. At some elite universities, there may be a minimum stipend established for all Ph.D. students, as well as a tuition waiver. The terms of these stipends vary greatly, and may consist of a scholarship or fellowship, followed by teaching responsibilities. At many elite universities, these stipends have been increasing, in response both to student pressure and especially to competition among the elite universities for graduate students.

In some fields, research positions are more coveted than teaching positions because student researchers are typically paid to work on the dissertation they are required to complete anyway, while teaching is generally considered a distraction from one's work. Research positions are more typical of science disciplines; they are relatively uncommon in humanities disciplines, and where they exist, rarely allow the student to work on their own research.

Departments often have funds for limited discretionary funding to supplement minor expenses such as research trips and travel to conferences.

A few students can attain outside fellowships such as the National Science Foundation (NSF) and National Physical Science Consortium (NPSC). Funding differs greatly by departments and universities; some universities give five years of full funding to all Ph.D. students, though often with a teaching requirement attached; other universities do not.

Foreign students are typically funded the same way as domestic (US) students, although Federally subsidized student and parent loans and work-study assistance are generally limited to U.S. citizens and nationals, permanent residents, and approved refugees. Moreover, some funding sources (such as many NSF fellowships) may only be awarded to domestic students. International students often have worse financial difficulties than domestic students because higher cost of tuition and fees, higher cost of living, limitation required by law to work on campus only, and possible race or ethnic discrimination. Reasons include high costs to visit their families back home, support of a family not allowed to work due to immigration laws, tuition that is steep by world standards, and large fees: visa fees by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, surveillance fees (such as Student and Exchange Visitor Information Systems, or SEVIS) by the United States Congress and the United States Department of Homeland Security.