Are public universities just stingy with scholarship money?

[MettaSutta]

I was accepted and will be attending Columbia for an MA program with a substantial scholarship; I was accepted to two much lower-ranked state schools (SUNY, etc.) with absolutely nothing.  I found this surprising, given the disparity in prestige/ranking.  I was told by current SUNY students that the MA program is a "cash cow" for the university and that only Ph.D. candidates get all the "perks" (stipends, fellowship funding, etc.)

[roving99]

I think this REALLY depends on the individual program. A lot of programs don't fund their MA students in order to save funding for Ph.D. candidates, or at least it seems to be pretty common from everything i've seen on the boards and from my own application round this past fall.

I'll be attending a large public state school in the fall, fully funded, but again, it will be the BA-PhD program. I don't think they fund MA-only candidates. I also know, however, that Columbia does not fund MA candidates in my field, they only fund Ph.D. students.

Not sure if my thoughts help at all, but an interesting topic nonetheless.

[MettaSutta]

42 minutes ago, ReichenbachFalls said:

I think this REALLY depends on the individual program. A lot of programs don't fund their MA students in order to save funding for Ph.D. candidates, or at least it seems to be pretty common from everything i've seen on the boards and from my own application round this past fall.

I'll be attending a large public state school in the fall, fully funded, but again, it will be the BA-PhD program. I don't think they fund MA-only candidates. I also know, however, that Columbia does not fund MA candidates in my field, they only fund Ph.D. students.

Not sure if my thoughts help at all, but an interesting topic nonetheless.

Yeah, I felt just surprised and lucky that Columbia gave me anything, given the "cash cow" reputations of terminal MA programs. And the FLAS fellowship will cover even more!

What area of art history will be your focus?

[ExponentialDecay]

Why are you asking..? You are already accepted at a program?

How substantial is the scholarship? If it's in the 10-20k range, this is fairly common and used by many schools like Columbia to incentivize students to come and pay the remaining 3/4-5/6 tuition. They make more money by forgiving some small portion of your tuition and getting you to come than by losing a student (they're not really giving you money - they're discounting a service with a fungible cost function). Public schools don't have as much freedom either in setting their costings or controlling their budget, as they have to report to the taxpayer, but their tuition fees are also usually lower. For instance, Columbia charges 56k in tuition whereas various SUNY campuses charge ~15k, less if you're a NY resident.

[MettaSutta]

The merit scholarship is in the $10-20K range, but FLAS will cover a lot more, including a summer. 

[ExponentialDecay]

I mean this isn't a comment on your finances. You asked about scholarships at Columbia master's programs and I answered. FLAS is effectively an external scholarship administered by the govt.

[MettaSutta]

Ahh got it.  I thought your department at Columbia made decisions on FLAS because I submitted my application directly through my Columbia online application portal.  

[frenchlover]

Columbia is notorious for its unfunded MA programs, particularly in the humanities (an MS in Statistics/CS pays off). That said, schools that only have MA programs (no PhD) and need TAs tend to give $$ support to MA candidates (I don't think Columbia has a PhD program in South Asian studies?) I found many wonderful funded programs of that nature, especially at public universities.

Edited June 10, 2018 by frenchlover