Funding opportunities for International students while pursuing Masters's in United States (TA, RA & GA)

This is one of the most asked questions by international students. What are the different ways of funding you can get while studying Masters? So without any further ado let’s get started.

This article will help anyone, that is planning to pursue master's in any field and wants to reduce their financial burden by obtaining funding. It will also help someone who is already studying Master’s and wants more clarification on the different types of funding available to them.

Let me be honest, before coming to the US, I had no clue about the assistantships or different kinds of funding universities provide. I only knew about some on-campus jobs. No one educates us about this and even the university websites don’t have curated information on funding opportunities provided by them. It’s important to know all the possible funding opportunities we have, to choose the right university and start planning early.

On-campus Jobs

Let me start with on-campus jobs. Universities have many types of on-campus jobs like working in the cafeteria, dining, book store, etc. These types of jobs are considered hourly jobs, they usually have minimum amount of wage set as per the state law, for ex. our university had around $12.5/hour since the Illinois government requires all businesses to have a minimum $12 wage. This is a good option to start working on-campus since they don’t have many pre-requisites.

There are other types of Graduate hourly jobs like Web developer, Analyst, IT Administrator, Customer support, etc which require some sort of expertise in their respective fields. These kinds of jobs usually pay more than the minimum wage. The amount for this totally depends on the university and can range from anywhere between $15-$30 per hour. You will mostly have to record and report the number of hours worked in these jobs to determine the stipend you get.

Assistantships

Coming to Assistantships, these are special kinds of funding where you can get your tuition fees waived off along with the hourly stipend. Typically there are three types of assistantships in universities, Research assistantships(RA), Teaching assistantships(TA), and generic ones called Graduate assistantships(GA). Having any of these jobs will get your full fees waived off and will pay you an hourly salary on top, depending on the total number of hours per week you work. Some universities have restrictions on the minimum number of hours needed to be worked to receive full-waiver. These kind of jobs are more common in Public universities.

Research assistants, as the name says do research work under a professor in a particular domain. The funding usually comes from the grant the professor has received to run his research project.

Teaching assistants are usually hired by their respective departments before the start of every semester. The work typically involves Grading, conducting office hours, exams and sometimes even taking the class in the absence of the professor. It’s usually granted based on the academic history and course competence of the student.

Graduate assistants are any other specialized Graduate hourly jobs that also have fee waivers. It can be anything from IT administrator, library assistant, Web developer, etc.

Scholarships

One more clarification I want to make which usually many people get confused about is how Assistantships are different from scholarships. Scholarships are usually grants provided to students in a lump sum or part of the fee being waived that helps students pay tuition fees and sometimes living expenses. Scholarships are usually based on merit and many times they offer them at the time of admission, mentioning it in the admission letter.

I was fortunate enough to obtain a Graduate hourly job first, then a Research assistant, and eventually a Teaching assistant job during my masters at my University. I am able to share with you all this through my journey and experience.

That’s all I have to share today. I will keep it short and to the point. I will write a separate article on what are the different ways to get these on-campus jobs and funding. Let me know in the comment section if this was helpful. Follow me on LinkedIn, Medium, for more updates on studying abroad, tech and more such content.