Stacking GA with outside fellowships

[AcademiCouture]

Is it possible? I wondered how this would work. Let's say you are receiving a GA that is worth 22k (9 months) plus tuition, well what if you have maybe around 25k in outside fellowships, will financial aid let you receive the outside fellowships with the GA award. I was curious of this, since you are actually working for you GA, and I didn't know if financial aid counted it in your financial aid budget, like they do with work study for undergraduate students. Thanks everybody!

[ktel]

It depends on the school. In my program, you are guaranteed a tuition waiver and a $15,000 stipend if you receive no other funding. If you receive external funding you get a $12,000 stipend and no tuition waiver. They will usually stipulate how much outside funding you can receive.

[Eigen]

For my school, it's either or. If you have a 25K external fellowship, that's your funding, and they'll pass the GA on to someone else.

There are a few cases where they might let a TA position stack somewhat- a bit of extra pay if they really need more TAs- but it won't be the full stipend, for sure- more like the pay you'd get as an adjunct (500-1500 per class).

For smaller external fellowships, our school has cap (a bit higher than a GA) that it keeps, and if you go above that they reduce your GA pay accordingly.

Also keep in mind that many external fellowships have rules about what other funding you can receive concurrently- I don't know of any that would let you take a GA stipend alongside the fellowship, although they might exist.

In the end, I doubt you'll find many schools that would let you keep a full 25k external fellowship and a 22k internal stipend + tuition waiver.

Edited September 21, 2011 by Eigen

[AcademiCouture]

Well that just sucks! I guess I need to inquire about how the COA is calculated at my prospective universities. It would be almost worth me applying to a local university and to keep my job while attending school and keeping an external fellowship.

[AcademiCouture]

Well I just called the financial aid dept. at UCONN, and apparently there you can stack outside money with a GA.

[starmaker]

There are some programs that won't give you a full assistantship with stipend if you have an outside fellowship, but will give you supplemental money (say, an extra 5k/year) on top of your fellowship. There are also places that will make up any difference between your fellowship and the standard stipend - say that your fellowship pays 20k/year plus tuition, but the standard assistantship stipend is 24k, they'll give you a 4k/year supplement.

[Eigen]

Well I just called the financial aid dept. at UCONN, and apparently there you can stack outside money with a GA.

Just a quick question: Is the GA position through the university, or the department?

If it's through the department, you should contact the department and ask, not the Financial Aid department, most likely. Our department handles all amounts, etc. when it comes to GA positions, either teaching or research.

[ktel]

Well that just sucks! I guess I need to inquire about how the COA is calculated at my prospective universities. It would be almost worth me applying to a local university and to keep my job while attending school and keeping an external fellowship.

Yeah I had the "this sucks" attitude a little bit when my funding got reduced due to my external scholarship. I do end up getting about $6000 more than I would have otherwise, but I obviously would love more money!

[lewin]

Well that just sucks! I guess I need to inquire about how the COA is calculated at my prospective universities. It would be almost worth me applying to a local university and to keep my job while attending school and keeping an external fellowship.

A lot of places and fellowships won't let you have an external job. My fellowship, for example, allows a max of 10 hours per week of external work, which allows me to TA.

The whole point is that they're paying you to attend graduate school, so you should be using that time to research and not at a second job.

Edited September 22, 2011 by lewin00

[AcademiCouture]

Very good responses, obviously not what I wanted to hear. The university I am applying how either a departmental GA (tuition remission, health insurance and a stipend), which requires 15-20 hours of work, and also a university diversity fellowship, which is pretty much the same, however you work on your own research interests. I will definitely call the grad department today.