HELP! Suddenly find the fellowship only provides part of the tuition fees...??

[Rayco]

Hi all,

I have almost decided to accept USC's EE PhD offer, but I suddenly found out that the fellowship (Annenberg, $34000 per year (1 year fellowship+3 year TA/RA) provides 'Payment of up to 36 units of tuition to be used for courses counting towards the PhD degree', while completing the PhD program requires 60 units. From USC's website, each unit costs over 2000 dollars, which is very expensive if I have to pay for the remaining 24 units myself...I expected that I could save $7.7k~14k each year without considering the tuition fees. but if the 24 units are included, I have to pay 12k each year for 4 years....

The handbook says "If you wish to exceed the number of units stated in your offer letter, please contact your academic department’s staff graduate advisor for advisement. Requests for additional tuition over the fellowship are reviewed on a case by case basis by the GAPP Office." But I'm not sure whether it's hard or easy to get additional tuition fees paid...

I have the following questions:

Do I really need to pay the remaining 24 units by myself?

If that's true, does anyone has any advice on balancing the tight budgets....

 

Thanks in advance!

 

[StHoly]

I think it is best to contact your graduate advisor or your PI regarding this. It sounds to me that the fellowship only pays for part of your tuition fees and not all of them. Contact your advisor as well as the person in charge in the graduate admission office to get more clarification on the terms of your offer.

 

 

[Rayco]

54 minutes ago, StHoly said:

I think it is best to contact your graduate advisor or your PI regarding this. It sounds to me that the fellowship only pays for part of your tuition fees and not all of them. Contact your advisor as well as the person in charge in the graduate admission office to get more clarification on the terms of your offer.

 

 

Thanks StHoly, I emailed secretary..hope they will give a detailed explanation for the funding offer..That make me a little shocked because I previously thought offer=full tuition waived :(...

[Rayco]

It seems I made a silly mistake...The secretary told me that the fellowship provides 36 unit per year instead of 36 in total...

[HoWei]

On 4/13/2019 at 3:16 AM, raycosine said:

It seems I made a silly mistake...The secretary told me that the fellowship provides 36 unit per year instead of 36 in total...

Haha, congratulations for you not needing to pay tuition! BTW, what's the definition of a ''unit''? Is that a set of courses? Because if fees of 36 units are waived per year, you can take 36 units one year for free! That will be a huge welfare! Of course a PHD candidate doesn't have so much time for courses especially in high year, still it can provide many learning resources for you!