Assistantships

Assistantships offer an excellent opportunity to pursue graduate study at little or no financial cost to the student. However, no financial cost does not mean no cost. Students who receive an assistantship are generally getting tuition remission and a modest stipend in exchange for 1/2 time work, and they usually need to be fulltime students to receive an assistantship. So, right off the bat, graduate students assistants (GSAs) have opted for 150% time commitment in order to not have to pay for grad school. That usually translates to a prolonged period of being overworked and underpaid, which is not exactly the ideal circumstances for concentrating on challenging studies or being highly creative.

Another thing about assistantships is that they are numerous where the university needs lots of cheap labor, and they are rare in areas where the university does not need such labor. So, grad students who want to study English or Math can often get lots of work as TAs in the labor intensive required freshman composition or college algebra course. However, getting an assistantship doing cutting edge research or working in a highly creative endeavor is a lot harder. Still, many grad students succeed in financing their entire graduate education by suffering the overworked and underpaid lifestyle for the 2-6 years is takes to complete their degree, and they emerge with the knowledge, the credential, and not a lot of student loan debt as they begin their careers.

Related

 * Teaching assistants (TAs)
 * Research assistants