Negotiating funding?

[blinksand_winks]

Hi all!

 

First off, congratulations to everyone who has been admitted and best of luck to those who have yet to hear back/been waitlisted. 

I am fortunate enough to have been admitted in two of my top choice (MA) programs and am wondering if anyone has any experience negotiating funding packages they have received upon admission. I'd appreciate any insight as to how I may best go about this, seeing as I had no idea this could be done until a few days ago when negotiation was mentioned in my acceptance letter. I have a couple concrete questions, but any anecdotal answers are appreciated! 

- Do I need to have dependents/extenuating circumstances, or just competing offers? Do I need a reason/other offer at all? As it stands, I will have to take out loans regardless of which offer I accept despite having no dependents/greatly extenuating circumstances. 

- One of my offers (X) is technically lower but on par with/greater than the other (Y) considering the cost of living in X city is much lower than in Y city.

- What do people usually negotiate? I feel like negotiation can amount to anything between "Please give me more stipend money" and "Could I have another guaranteed TA-ship?" and I definitely don't want to come off as presumptuous. Obviously, I will find a way to phrase things much more professionally.

Any help is appreciated, please let me know if you have answers to questions I haven't thought of! 

[lkaitlyn]

MA programs normally don't have funding packages so honestly not sure how to answer this. For PhD offers, there's another thread where I wrote a long post on how I negotiated that you can check out, but just know that your leverage for MA negotiations is likely going to be far less than for PhD because they know most MA programs offer nothing.

[HeartOfGlass]

I agree with Ikaitlyn above that the leverage for MA negotiations could be less than for PhD negotiation. BUT you do have the chance to receive more money w/ MA offers.

First, it's never hurtful to ask for more money. Worst case scenario they keep the original offer. You won't lose anything. And I think it is completely justified since it is very costly to do extra years of schools. Not everyone can afford that.

Second, with competing offers, you do have the leverage to negotiate. Not just MA offers, you can even leverage with job offers if you have them. Cost of living is a doable reason as well, but I guess it is less of a leverage than competing offers. But of course you can say sth like "I have this other offer located in a less expensive place and also gives me a scholarship/funding, so I'm wondering if you can give me more so it's less stressful for me" 

Third, ppl in MA programs are used to funding/scholarship negotiations, so you can be straightforward (and polite, ofc). When I received my MA scholarship package, I straight up sent a short email and said sth like "hi I wonder if more funding is possible" and they replied with a simple email saying "yes, if you send acceptance letters from other programs we can reconsider." In my case I did not have any competing offer at the time, so I didn't get more. But I know ppl from my grogram who did get more, after sending an competing offer.

Fourth, I think the good thing with MA offer negotiation is that they usually recruit a lot of ppl and students only stay for 1-2 years. It's not like PhD applications, which have only limited positions and longer commitment. Both of those make MA-related decisions go faster, and you don't need to wait for a long time or send multiple emails to persuade them.

 

[hotsawce]

Check out this latest podcast episode from Personal Finance for PhDs (http://pfforphds.com/), specifically about negotiating offers for PhD admits: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2WS39JBLFup6PS2yUkDXT3?si=n0KulglKSvGLZ3R7Ch19Uw&utm=&nd=1

[CleoOfSicily]

On 2/5/2021 at 11:57 PM, lkaitlyn said:

MA programs normally don't have funding packages so honestly not sure how to answer this. For PhD offers, there's another thread where I wrote a long post on how I negotiated that you can check out, but just know that your leverage for MA negotiations is likely going to be far less than for PhD because they know most MA programs offer nothing.

Hello! Can you share the link to the thread?  Thanks