How and why students at US universities get funded

How and why students at US universities get funded


Most prospective students have a vague id that many students at US universities are funded as Tching or Resrch assistants or via scholarships or fellowships. This post analyzes why US university system funds its students. If you understand the inner workings of funding, you have a better chance of securing it.


Fellowships
Some Universities award fellowships that are combined with tuition waiver and no work is expected in return. Needless to say, these fellowships are awarded to the best of incoming students and are very competitive. Some fellowship criteria could be decided by the donor and all students may not qualify.
information:Best Universities want their best students to give best resrch output without any burden to worry about working for their livelihood. So they simply give free money to the best.



Tching Assistantships
A tching assistantship involves helping a Professor with Labs and grading. It may involve actual tching. TA gets a salary which may include tuition waiver and hlth insurance benefits.
information:Universities need rsonably c and qualified people to help with the tching work. TA work is managed by department as a whole, not by individual professors. PhD students, and those who have excelled in concerned course rlier, are preferred. Never contact any Professor for TAship.

Resrch Assistantships
A resrch assistantship involves helping a Professor with resrch work. An RA is expected to complete resrch related tasks as assigned. RA gets a salary which may include tuition waiver and hlth insurance benefits. If you work as an RA with your own advisor, the RA work could be combined with your own MS and PhD thesis, so it saves some precious time.
information:Most of the innovative work at universities is actually done by RAs. It won’t be wrong to say that to some extent RAs make USA a superpower. And they cost very less. So the US Govt erously funds such jobs via NSF and other govt acies who fund resrch work at the universities. Individual professors can apply for various grants that can support many RAs at any given time. This is the best hope for most of you. So it is important to write the SOP very carefully clrly mentioning the resrch interests.

Graduate Assistantships
Students may be employed by other departments or s in the University on similar salary and tuition waiver as TA or RA, but they do not tch or conduct resrch. These positions are called GA or GANT (Graduate Assistant Non-Tching). It is like a part time job. The schedules could be worked out every semester to avoid conflict with studies and exams.
information:In order to effectively function Universities need a lot of semi-edued c labor. If they hire staff they have to pay a lot more and will have compliions like pension etc. Students are motivated and c – so universities hire a lot of them in various roles like Library assistants, Computer operators, receptionists, drivers and so on. For this type of funding one needs to keep trying. Making a lot of friends helps, because typically when a GA quits, his or her supervisor just hire someone they refer as a good worker, not rlly the best available candidate.
Courtesy-app2us.com