Loans during a Ph.D.

[jdeep]

Hi,

I'm planning to apply to the doctoral programs in the US starting in 2013. I am trying to understand if that loan for the total expenses (roughly around 30,000$/year) must be taken for only the first year, or is it advised to take it more years? I understand that Ph.D. students are given aid in the form of fellowships/RAship/TA etc., but are these approximately enough to pay part of the loan back and still have enough left to use on daily expenses?

[jeffster]

The answer is "it depends." Usually as part of the application approval, or at least close thereafter, a school will notify you of whether or not they're offering you financial aid and/or a stipend. Some top schools have lots of money and fund all their students, others have very little money and fund none of their students, or maybe one. Funding can be partial or full, or full plus extra money for living. Most offer a stipend in exchange for doing teaching or research, which also gives good experience.

You can do some research on any individual institution to find out what the norm is there for the program you're interested in. That might give you a good starting point at least.

[jdeep]

Thanks jeffster!

Say that funding is approved in a hypothetical situation, does that mean there will a waiver in the fees? Or will I have to take a loan and pay that immediately upfront during the time of admission?

[jeffster]

I think it usually comes in the form of a tuition waiver all together, and you only have to take loans to cover the difference (if there is one).

There are also various outside funding sources that grant money to people based on all sorts of criteria. This will vary widely by school and area of study. Your program should have more information on these things - many of them are merit-based in one way or another.