Which MPP programs have the best funding?

[lackey]

This is a question for posterity, mostly, since this doesn't seem to have been updated for a few years now.

Based on my limited observations, WWS obviously does the best. Sanford and LBJ seem pretty good. Harris is in the middle of the pack. SIPA and NYU Wagner are supposed to be rough, at least for incoming first-years. No idea what the HKS situation is like outside the very slim possibility of attaining a fellowship.

I know everyone's situation is different, but what has been your general observation? I'm sure funding also differs quite a bit for those who have no Full Time work experience vs. those with 2-3+ years as well. 

[VeryCheesey]

Probably slightly off-topic, but MIT's Technology and Policy Program (TPP) is very well funded. However, it's also very competitive.

 

How about Duke Sanford?

[lackey]

7 minutes ago, VeryCheesey said:

Probably slightly off-topic, but MIT's Technology and Policy Program (TPP) is very well funded. However, it's also very competitive.

 

How about Duke Sanford?

I didn't look into Sanford and am answering based on limited data, but they seem to fund better than most programs.

[AddSmith]

I think strategic partnerships is a HUGE part of this as well for those of us who have the chance. As an Americorps service member, I was automatically given $10k to CMU, and my Americorps education award would be matched by Harris, McCourt, etc. Heinz is always good about funding, and actually gave me more than the minimum they promised for TFA. WWS is also AMAZING for funding. I've heard Batten is great too (and they pay for your health insurance!). In terms of limited funding, Wisconsin and George Washington are the immediate ones that come to my mind! 

[mikemcg]

The good news: I've heard from Harris that the vast majority (maybe even as high as 90%) receive scholarship funding. The bad news is that the average funding is $9,000. Middle of the pack sounds about right to me.

[PolicyPol]

Currently deciding on where to go...my final options are: 

1) Evans with a generous fellowship (50-60%)

2) Harris with no funding

3) LBJ with almost 100% funding

4) McCourt with 15K/year

5) Univ Illinois Chicago with full tuition + 10K/semester stipend 

I'm an international student so international rep is important...but I obviously don't want to ruin myself economically

If anyone has insights, that would be super helpful!

Edited March 12, 2018 by PolicyPol

[lackey]

18 minutes ago, PolicyPol said:

Currently deciding on where to go...my final options are: 

1) Evans with a generous fellowship (50-60%)

2) Harris with no funding

3) LBJ with almost 100% funding

4) McCourt with 15K/year

5) Univ Illinois Chicago with full tuition + 10K/semester stipend 

I'm an international student so international rep is important...but I obviously don't want to ruin myself economically

If anyone has insights, that would be super helpful!

Didn't apply to LBJ but why is their funding so generous? Small class cohort/need-based/small fin aid pool? 

[PolicyPol]

I dont know, my guess is that they didnt have restrictions for the personal statement so I was able to talk about publications and other stuff that I missed on my other statements. Is LBJ well-known outside of Texas? Would you recommend going there?

[gelatinskeleton]

I also got a "too good to pass up" deal from LBJ, full ride plus monthly stipend. They're also one of the cheapest but still good schools around, which is really appealing to me, since I have undergrad loans I'm still on the hook for. I am being tempted by getting accepted into my dream school (Berkeley!) but I got no funding so I'm trying to remind myself how much it sucks to pay loans. I also thinking living in Austin would be awesome, and everyone I've talked to who went to LBJ loved it (it's sample size of like 3 people but whatever).

I would have loved better statistics regarding how common funding is at various schools. Gradcafe certainly helped a bit but it's hard to get a full and accurate picture! It also doesn't help that some places that give many people funding (Duke?) are INSANELY expensive to begin with. The half-tuition scholarship I received at Duke made it about as expensive as Berkeley would be without any funding. 

As for other schools I got into, NYU is notoriously bad at giving out aid/scholarships. I knew I would probably not get any aid going into it, and in retrospect, I probably shouldn't have applied. It seems a lot of people work part-time, which is a great option for some people but not one that I want to take myself.

[LuluM93512]

Hands down LBJ for sure. I didn't expect them to be this generous - I was really shocked that they are willing to cough up almost a full ride. AU didn't give me any funding, McCourt offered me up to about 18k a year, and Trachtenberg is handing out 6k per semester, that's definitely not enough to live in DC. I applied to Cornell too because I heard that they are pretty affordable compares to the rest of the ivy and but their admin office sucks. I'd love to go to Harris, but they are stingy on $, so I'm not hopeful. 

[chocolatecheesecake]

Just a friendly reminder that you can always negotiate with your schools... back in the day, I leveraged a full-tuition scholarship from USC into an extra $5K per year from Duke, which made it easy to say yes. In fact, I always recommend negotiating with schools. There's absolutely no harm in asking. No school will rescind their admission or current offer just because you asked for more money. You may even get it.

Some notes on what to be aware of:

• If you mention that another school gave you a better deal, they'll ask for proof, so you'll need to send them your admittance letter/package from the other school. Obviously, don't lie about this. 
• Even if you don't have a better offer in hand, there's still no harm in asking for more money. It just makes it slightly less likely that they'll say yes. 
• When other students turn down their aid, they can redistribute that money to people who have asked for it, depending on how much they want you to attend. It may end up being only a day or two before the admit deadline, so figure out your bottom line so that you can respond on time.  
• Private schools have more money to throw around than public ones, just a fact of life. I'd still ask the public ones, though! They just don't have as much latitude. 
• I suggest only negotiating with your top choice, and negotiating in good faith: that is, if they give you what you want, you should accept that offer. You theoretically could negotiate with several schools while making no promises, but I think it complicates things, and a targeted approach for your top choice makes everything simpler. After all, the goal is not to get the most money from one of your acceptances; it's to get the best deal possible from your dream school. 

On another note, I have heard very good things about LBJ from former students as well. It does sound like a great deal, so I think people would be making a great choice going with them.

[lackey]

4 minutes ago, chocolatecheesecake said:

Just a friendly reminder that you can always negotiate with your schools... back in the day, I leveraged a full-tuition scholarship from USC into an extra $5K per year from Duke, which made it easy to say yes. In fact, I always recommend negotiating with schools. There's absolutely no harm in asking. No school will rescind their admission or current offer just because you asked for more money. You may even get it.

Some notes on what to be aware of:

• If you mention that another school gave you a better deal, they'll ask for proof, so you'll need to send them your admittance letter/package from the other school. Obviously, don't lie about this. 
• Even if you don't have a better offer in hand, there's still no harm in asking for more money. It just makes it slightly less likely that they'll say yes. 
• When other students turn down their aid, they can redistribute that money to people who have asked for it, depending on how much they want you to attend. It may end up being only a day or two before the admit deadline, so figure out your bottom line so that you can respond on time.  
• Private schools have more money to throw around than public ones, just a fact of life. I'd still ask the public ones, though! They just don't have as much latitude. 
• I suggest only negotiating with your top choice, and negotiating in good faith: that is, if they give you what you want, you should accept that offer. You theoretically could negotiate with several schools while making no promises, but I think it complicates things, and a targeted approach for your top choice makes everything simpler. After all, the goal is not to get the most money from one of your acceptances; it's to get the best deal possible from your dream school. 

On another note, I have heard very good things about LBJ from former students as well. It does sound like a great deal, so I think people would be making a great choice going with them.

Can you ever negotiate with your school for a relatively high amount and they give you a somewhat lower amount? Or do they give you nothing more? Curious about Harris here.

[sally88]

On 3/12/2018 at 11:20 AM, gelatinskeleton said:

I also got a "too good to pass up" deal from LBJ, full ride plus monthly stipend. They're also one of the cheapest but still good schools around, which is really appealing to me, since I have undergrad loans I'm still on the hook for. I am being tempted by getting accepted into my dream school (Berkeley!) but I got no funding so I'm trying to remind myself how much it sucks to pay loans. I also thinking living in Austin would be awesome, and everyone I've talked to who went to LBJ loved it (it's sample size of like 3 people but whatever).

I'm in the same dilemma. Got a full ride at LBJ, and am deciding between that versus Harris/Sanford/Goldman, each of which would probably come out to something like 40-50k in total tuition/fees unless I can negotiate much more funding (which I'm going to attempt to do).

I really like the idea of living in Austin and also being debt-free, but I'm hesitant about the comparative career bump the school would give me since it's lower-ranked and I would probably want to return to the east coast afterwards. It's a difficult decision!

[gelatinskeleton]

50 minutes ago, sally88 said:

I'm in the same dilemma. Got a full ride at LBJ, and am deciding between that versus Harris/Sanford/Goldman, each of which would probably come out to something like 40-50k in total tuition/fees unless I can negotiate much more funding (which I'm going to attempt to do).

I really like the idea of living in Austin and also being debt-free, but I'm hesitant about the comparative career bump the school would give me since it's lower-ranked and I would probably want to return to the east coast afterwards. It's a difficult decision!

Yes! I am deciding between LBJ vs Michigan/Sanford/Goldman. There's no way at this point that I can attend the other schools at the current tuition rates they're offering me, especially when I realize that on top of that I'm going to have to afford rent and food and books somehow. But if I successfully negotiate with them, then it will be a tough call! I would be really interested to hear about your thoughts going forward on all of this  Are you attending any admitted students days? 

Just in my personal network of people, which is mostly DC based, I knew a lot of people who went to Duke Sanford. I knew a couple that went to Goldman and a larger handful that went to LBJ. I also have been perusing alumni from those schools on LinkedIn and have found very comprable results re: cool jobs in the East Coast. Actually, the LBJ School grads seemed to have the most interesting jobs to me, although I think they had less work experience going into school than I did. This is obviously very piecemeal and subjective to my experience/people I know/career goals, but it does make me more convinced that any of them would be a good choice. 

[diyadeb]

I too got an almost full scholarship from LBJ but I also got into Harris and Berkeley (dream school). The decision for me is tougher as I'm an Indian student and if I ever decide to come back to India, the brand matters a lot. Additionally, I wasn't sure of the course that I got into at LBJ (Masters in Global Policy Studies). I'd written to them several times requesting to speak with Faculty or anyone for that matter but never heard back on time. 

 

[diyadeb]

1 hour ago, sally88 said:

I'm in the same dilemma. Got a full ride at LBJ, and am deciding between that versus Harris/Sanford/Goldman, each of which would probably come out to something like 40-50k in total tuition/fees unless I can negotiate much more funding (which I'm going to attempt to do).

I really like the idea of living in Austin and also being debt-free, but I'm hesitant about the comparative career bump the school would give me since it's lower-ranked and I would probably want to return to the east coast afterwards. It's a difficult decision!

Your point regarding the comparative career bump has me worried as well! 

[lackey]

7 minutes ago, diyadeb said:

Your point regarding the comparative career bump has me worried as well! 

This is a legit question worth pursuing. How much of a career bump difference is there between top 5 schools and between a top 5 school and LBJ? 

[diyadeb]

Is there that much of a difference in career trajectories between the top 5 schools? One also has to take into account the class sizes and the inherent interests that attract people to certain schools. 

What is LBJs actual ranking though? From whatever I've read its anywhere between 20-30

[lackey]

3 minutes ago, diyadeb said:

Is there that much of a difference in career trajectories between the top 5 schools? One also has to take into account the class sizes and the inherent interests that attract people to certain schools. 

What is LBJs actual ranking though? From whatever I've read its anywhere between 20-30

It depends on where you check (also, I really have issues with the existing methodologies used to conduct ranks. Not as rigorous as for law and business). I saw LBJ ranked 11th in a 2017 USNWR ranking.

[diyadeb]

5 minutes ago, lackey said:

It depends on where you check (also, I really have issues with the existing methodologies used to conduct ranks. Not as rigorous as for law and business). I saw LBJ ranked 11th in a 2017 USNWR ranking.

I agree with that. But coming back to the earlier point, I've worked with a fair set of people in the development sector and haven't come across anyone from LBJ (not an accurate representation I agree). But it did bother me to not be able to speak to anyone at LBJ about the differences in their courses. 

[gelatinskeleton]

10 minutes ago, diyadeb said:

I agree with that. But coming back to the earlier point, I've worked with a fair set of people in the development sector and haven't come across anyone from LBJ (not an accurate representation I agree). But it did bother me to not be able to speak to anyone at LBJ about the differences in their courses. 

If it evens out your experience, I worked in development and knew folks who went to LBJ. They now live abroad working for some really interesting NGOs. However I do think that U Chicago and Berkeley as institutions have more formal ties to India, if this is a priority to you. Also, yes, it seems like the LBJ front office is a bit disorganized. 

[diyadeb]

28 minutes ago, gelatinskeleton said:

If it evens out your experience, I worked in development and knew folks who went to LBJ. They now live abroad working for some really interesting NGOs. However I do think that U Chicago and Berkeley as institutions have more formal ties to India, if this is a priority to you. Also, yes, it seems like the LBJ front office is a bit disorganized. 

UChicago definitely does and Berkeley is very well known here as well. I just went over LBJs career stats and it seems that their placements are centred in and around Texas which doesn't work well for me. 

I've worked with some brilliant people from Berkeley and I supposed knowing them well made me partial towards the school! 

[MPPKollege]

6 minutes ago, diyadeb said:

UChicago definitely does and Berkeley is very well known here as well. I just went over LBJs career stats and it seems that their placements are centred in and around Texas which doesn't work well for me. 

I've worked with some brilliant people from Berkeley and I supposed knowing them well made me partial towards the school! 

You are generally correct. While schools such as Evans, LBJ, and La Follette are ranked quite well and very strong programs, their focus tends to be more local, with its graduates tending to stay in state. 

I am currently in the same situation, in which I received full tuition from La Follette, but I think that the Ford school would be more in line with my career aspirations. 

[gelatinskeleton]

5 minutes ago, diyadeb said:

UChicago definitely does and Berkeley is very well known here as well. I just went over LBJs career stats and it seems that their placements are centred in and around Texas which doesn't work well for me. 

I've worked with some brilliant people from Berkeley and I supposed knowing them well made me partial towards the school! 

I’ve also worked closely with amazing Berkeley folks (and to be fair Duke as well), it definitely biased me. But I am also weirdly biased with the LBJ school, a lot of my former professors who I really respect have strong ties there. I guess if I’m biased towards everything it cancels out and just makes me indecisive  

one of my concerns for both Berkeley and LBJ is that a lot of their career results (I think a majority) seem to be in state. Im not sure where I want to end up but I definitely want flexibility!

[diyadeb]

I like Berkeley's curriculum and being around SF works out for me in the long run. Berkeley also has tuition remissions if you get an RA/TA. aaaagh! confused :/