So I'm a student from the UK applying to some US unis for a PhD in physics.
About a week or so ago I received an offer from the University of Oklahoma, which offered a $19,200 stipend for being a TA.
The offer also stated the department gives a full tuition waiver and a health plan, however it says I will also need to pay about $4,000 in fees still, or at least I think it does. I'll copy and paste the bit about the details they gave me for the tuition, fees and health plan.
Financial details for the tuition, fees, and health plan. We provide this information to assist you in comparing offers from different universities. While we have made an effort to be as accurate as possible, the numbers for the 2016-2017 academic year have not yet been announced. We can provide you with the numbers for the current academic year. The Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education charge tuition on a two tiered system. Oklahoma residents pay only the resident tuition. Non-Oklahoma residents pay the non-resident tuition in addition to the resident tuition. The typical course load is three 3 credit hour courses per semester. All graduate students receive a full tuition waiver from the Graduate College, consisting of non-resident tuition ($549.00/credit hour) and resident tuition ($190.70/credit hour). Until you complete the qualifying exam and our specialist exam, the Department requires you to register for 9 credit hours per semester. After you have completed those requirements, you are only required to register for 5 credit hours per semester. All first year students also enroll in a 1 credit hour Introduction to Research course your first semester—thus your first semester will be 10 credit hours. The value of the waived tuition is $15,058 in your first year. The University assesses fees from all students; the breakdown is $191.50 per semester plus $203.20/credit hour for classes within the College of Arts & Sciences. For your initial 19-credit-hour year, your fees total $4249/yr, but will drop to $2415/yr after you pass your specialist exam. A student health plan (worth $1200/yr) for graduate assistants is available to you at no cost. In summary, the typical first and second year Physics and Astronomy graduate student will receive waivers of tuition and health insurance worth $15,058/yr and pay $4249/yr in out-of-pocket fees.
Am I understanding this correctly, that they're basically offering me effectively $15,000 as a stipend? I mean, that seems like a ridiculous offer, and I couldn't understand why anyone would ever take that.