I found another way to attend masters for free! For international students, you should consider J-1 Scholar Visa. The minimum requirement is that you need a bachelors degree and haven't received a J-1 in the past. This will make you an employee to the university meaning you can get staff benefits. The benefits are different with universities. For example, if you are a Case Western "research assistance I" employee the benefits are 1) Free tuition up to 6 credits, 2) health benefit (you only pay $24 per month for minimum health insurance) If you pay $9 more you get dental and if you pay $4 you get some other benefit that I can't remember right now 3) pay check ($25,225, but you have to subtract tax + health benefit). There are many master programs that are designed for staff students which means you can get a masters degree for free and get living expenses at the same time. It takes about 2 years (including summer) to get the degree and its mostly 1-2 classes max per semester so that's not a huge load of work compared to regular master students. The other plus side is that when you go for thesis degree, you can work with any professor in any department as long as it is related to the department you want to get a masters, so for me its any science department. The only down side about this is that the professor you want to work has to have enough funding to support you and if he runs out, your contract is over. Which means if you are 2/3 done with your masters, but your professor runs out of funding, you have to either go get another job or get a student visa and continue. Hopefully my professor has enough funding to support me for at least 2 years. I forgot to mention, J-1 visa is up to 5 years and each year you have to renew (update) them. I am not sure if you have to go back to your home country to get it renewed, but I think they just check if your professor has enough funding to support you the next year. Anyways, I think that's the best option so far. I will still apply just in case my professor can't hire me as an employee, but hopefully that won't happen. Good luck to everyone!