PhD - International Student Hopeful - Financial Questions!!!

Push Button / Receive Cat

Hello everyone,

I am currently a Canadian student studying my Master's Biology (non-thesis) program in a University of Texas. I hope to get into a Toxicology PhD program in the US in the future. However, I have had a issue with funding my schooling as an international student currently in my Master's program. I had to give up hopes of writing a Master's thesis because my family was not willing to pay 10k a semester for 6+ semesters so I can finish it. However, I want to commit myself to a PhD program both to continue my education but cannot pay another 10k a semester for 5+ years.


I am hoping to possibly apply for a PhD in US schools this fall and I am wondering how exactly do PhD students pay for their schooling? As in, I want to be able to financially support my PhD studied simply by going to school. I heard many PhD students are capable of financing themselves through their PhD programs. I realize that many work in the lab as a research assistant while being a teaching assistant. As well, you receive certain financial support from fellowships? Can anyone please shed more detail on this situation? This might be a little more complex since I am an international student, who might have heightened tuition costs.


I am hoping to plan my future career options in the summer and would be grateful for any input.



Thank you!

shadydentist

I am not entirely sure how differently international students are treated here, but next year I'm going to be a first year graduate student. My total financial package included 12k for tuition/insurance, and 16k for TAing for the first nine months. After the first year, most students begin doing research, and a research assistant stipend is generally somewhat more than a TA stipend. PhD candidates generally get paid enough to live by, as they don't want their researchers to need to get outside jobs.

As far as I can tell, most international students simply pay higher tuition. You might need to be a bit more frugal than your peers, but you should still have enough to live by. I would suggest applying for additional grants as well. The US offers grants such as the NSF and DOE graduate grants, does Canada have any similar programs?

Push Button / Receive Cat

I am currently looking into the Canadian grants for students going to the US. But I am still wondering for students without such grants >_<

Kistra

The lab you are doing your thesis research in will have grants to pay for their research. Those grants will include money to pay people to do said research. This is how you get paid and your tuition gets paid.

Your first year may (or may not) be an issue. I don't think NIH training grants can cover international students, but not all schools/departments have training grants. Ask the schools when you apply. Some schools you will go straight into a lab and this won't be an issue, other schools have you doing rotations your first year and pay their students through other means like training grants.

Gdiguy

I'm fairly sure that almost all biology PhD programs in the US go into the application process with the assumption that they're going to somehow cover your tuition... where and by whom you're being funded is usually something handled behind the scenes by the administrators of your program, and you may or may not be involved in that decision... you can apply for funding as well, but that's typically done for one of two reasons: 1) "it will look more prestigous, and usually pay a tiny bit more / give you extra travel money for conferences", or 2) "your PI runs out of money and needs you to get a fellowship in order to stay on". 2) is much more common for post-docs; for grad students, I think the department is usually responsible for picking up the slack somehow (obviously if you're not graduating in 8 years or something, they may kick you out if you don't find funding, but in the basic case this is my experience)

The issue with funding for international students is more that many schools don't have a lot of funding that can go for this purpose, so they won't accept very many unfunded students; in that sense, getting funding before you apply is more of a bonus to your application than anything else (e.g., we have a number of Singaporean students who get funded by their government, and a few (but not too many) other international students, as they have to be funded by department money / lab money that doesn't have restrictions). (I know here one way they get around that is to give foreign students preference for being nominated for some school-wide donation-based grants)

I heard many PhD students are capable of financing themselves through their PhD programs. I realize that many work in the lab as a research assistant while being a teaching assistant. As well, you receive certain financial support from fellowships?

For biology PhD programs, you're basically given free tuition & a stipend (the Stanford/Harvard/MIT/etc schools are ~30k/year now) in exchange for your work in a lab. Most programs have only 1-2 years of classes (with significantly less than a full load the second year), with the idea that in your second year you will have joined a lab, and will start doing research that will lead to your thesis project. Some programs will require you to TA a course or two, some won't (mine doesn't), and in most cases you can make an extra ~$1-3k by TA'ing additional courses.. however, you aren't expected to be TA'ing every quarter. A biology PhD is much more of a research thing, and very little of a teaching thing.

If you're worried about funding, I'd drop an email to one or two of the programs you're thinking of applying to and ask them for suggestions about fellowships to apply for / whether it would be necessary; they can probably give you a better answer than we can

GenlyAi

I just want to echo what Kistra and Gdiguy said.

In the schools I'm familiar with, the first year is rotations and in subsequent years you have a sponsoring lab.

During the first year, american students have their tuition and stipend paid for by a training grant for which international students are not eligible. In subsequent years, your lab will pay these things, and international students are eligible (good thing, too, because these have to pay a lot of foreign post-docs).

So you can:

1. Find your own grant (this may be very hard)
2. Go to school in Canada
3. Pay for your first year out of your own pocket, then accept lab funding for the rest of your program.

But Gdiguy is right that the best funded departments (which are usually at the Stanfords, Harvards, etc) are more likely to be able to scrape some unrestricted funds together for a few international students.

Hypatia

This may be different in biology (coming from an engineering/computer science perspective), but usually when/if you get accepted into a PhD program they will let you know whether or not they can guarantee funding.

If you're guaranteed funding then you will likely get a TA-ship if you can't find your own funding. If you aren't guaranteed funding then generally your mission is to find a professor with funding (from grants, etc) who might be willing to fund you and/or be your adviser. A lot of times professors aren't willing to fund you unless/until they've seen you work and know that you're a good bet, because they tend to have a lot of options for who they fund. This can take several forms, but in my experience they either A) want to have you in one of their classes for a semester to see how you do with schoolwork, if you generally manage your time well, what kinds of projects you work on, etc etc, or want you to "work" for them for a semester on a project without them actually funding you so that they can see how you work, get to know you, etc.

I'm not sure of how this differs for international students (I think they just don't guarantee funding for them), but my understanding is generally that you really need to locate a professor who's willing to take you under his/her wing, so start rubbing elbows and being sociable!

Edit/Disclaimer: As far as I know, being funded like this doesn't apply to stuff like the MBA program, medical school, law school, fine arts, etc