Good News, Bad News

[serendipityjct]

Good News: I received an acceptance letter from one of the four graduate programs I applied to. I just finished interviews at my tied-for-first-choice program and am feeling confident about how it went. I have an interview for another program scheduled at the beginning of March.

Bad News: Student loans will cover tuition, but I have no idea where

Comments

[bobkitty]

Hm. Well, I haven't won the lottery, unfortunately, so that's out. And most PsyD/PhD/EdD programs *won't let you* work more than a certain number of hours per week (putting them near the top of my list of "folks who have no clue how things like paying bills works in the real world"). However, a number of programs offer stipends for research positions instead of work study- the hours per week work out the same, but the money is significantly greater AND most will offer a tuition reduction/waiver in addition to money (for example, as a MA student I worked as a TA 10-15 hours a week for $2000 per semester plus a tuition waiver). The way to work that system is to ask for the maximum amount of student loans, so you have that money *plus* the stipend money, and the department covers your tuition- the only outlay to you is books and fees.

Perhaps that type of program is available?

And congrats on your acceptance!

[geojulie]

Congratulations! Which programs did you apply to? And which ones are tied for first? Are any in Florida? ;) Are they at least in warm, tropical, and/or exciting places?

[joeyhemlock]

(Happy birthday, pretty girl!)

[goonhead]

I'm not familiar with how PsyD programs work, but the masters and PhD programs I attended in the field of geography were at schools/departments where my entire tuition was covered, and on top of that I had a stipend to live on. It wasn't much (about 550 a month at the masters level and 825 a month at the PhD level.) Officially the workload was 20 hours per week. When I got out of the PhD program, all that was available to me was an $8.27 an hour job which, since it was full-time, provided slightly more income than the graduate school stipend!

The good news after all these years of very spare living was that I only owed student loans on my four years as an undergraduate. If you can avoid racking up more debt by finding a program that will pay your tuition, this is definitely a good thing.