Hi everyone and congrats for those of you who've been admitted/waitlisted! As I mentioned earlier, I'm currently a first-year GSPP student. I'm circling back to this post because I'm in the middle of contacting new admits and wanted to extend an offer to this forum to answer any questions. Those of you who've already gotten their admission decisions will be hearing from my colleagues shortly, if you haven't already, but the proposition stands nevertheless.
I mostly want to let everyone know about my experience with financing my GSPP education. Scholarships from GSPP are very limited. I only know a handful of people in my cohort who are receiving any kind of merit aid, and it's typically only through the first year. I am not one of these recipients. However, the real cost reductions are in the ASE (Academic Student Employee) positions such as TAships, research positions, tutoring, and grading. Not only does this knock off 40-60% of your overall costs, but you're awarded a stipend, as well. These positions are almost all covered by our AMAZING graduate student union and come with free health insurance, assuming you're working at a minimum of 10 hours/week, potentially even less given recent negotiations. I cannot overstate how lucky we are to have such committed union reps and this was a major factor for me in choosing my program. In regards to availability of these positions, I'm not aware of anyone who was looking for one and didn't get an offer.
Graduate students at Berkeley are also entitled to receive in-state tuition after their first year, though I believe this only applies to U.S. citizens. I am an out-of-state student myself.
All of this being said, I'm going to be coming out of GSPP completely debt-free, which would not have been remotely possible at any of the other programs I had been considering (especially Harris). I was a GSI (Graduate Student Instructor aka what Berkeley calls their TAs) last semester and am a GSR (graduate student researcher) this semester. I am planning on having similar appointments for the remainder of my time here. With the stipends + tuition remission that these positions come with, I am essentially paying nothing to attend this program and the remission/stipends will actually be greater than what I'm paying overall. My colleagues who started out as CA residents are in even more advantageous positions.
The main source of your out-of-pocket costs will ultimately be cost of living. The key reason I am not taking out any loans at all is because of the savings I accrued during my gap years and that I'm fortunate enough to live with a partner to split expenses with. The majority of students here ARE taking out loans, and this is mostly to cover housing costs. Rent in East Bay is an absolute nightmare, yes, but zero tuition + cost of living in California was still a much better outlook for me than hella tuition/loans + moderate cost of living anywhere else.
Let me know if you have any Qs! The Bay Area is under official quarantine so I can't leave my apartment and have all the time in the world. Feel free to DM and/or reply here. Take care, all!
Three things really stuck with me on admitted students day.
1. I lived in Minneapolis and my visit to Berkeley was the first time I smelled fresh, green plants in almost six months.
2. The professors. I'm sure every program talks about how committed their faculty are to their students, but it's authentic here. They were extremely welcoming and friendly at admitted students day and only continued to invest in us 100% once school began.
3. Most importantly, current students. On ASD, I had an hour-long, deeply honest conversation with two other students about their experience at GSPP. The dynamics here are complex. Berkeley is not immune to the problematic tendencies that come with being an elite institution and it/GSPP has a long way to go in several respects. What stood out to me is that most of the student body here is committed to keeping the school accountable for its culture and decisions. Since being here, this has ranged from pushing the school to drop a contract with a lecturer funded by a shady partisan org to organizing our grad student union in solidarity with the Santa Cruz strikes.
With regards to my post-graduation plans, my partner's family is from the area and we're probably going to stay here for the foreseeable future. There's no shortage of policy jobs here, and we love the beauty of Northern California. However, many MANY of my cohort friends are planning on leaving for D.C./wherever they moved from before GSPP. Due to Berkeley's ranking/name and our scary-good career services team, no one's worried about getting connected after graduation.
