Are most of the master students unfunded?

[HappyEngineer]

I looked up the top 50 US universities' Mechanical Engineering Master program. Most of them either advertise 'funding for master is extremely rare' or 'funding is limited for master', only a handful schools said 'most of the students are funded in some way' but I bet lots of people would want to apply schools. So do most of master students have to pay decent amount of money out of their pockets?

[Cipochka]

I applied to Purdue PhD, was accepted to Master + funding // civil engineering

[budgie]

Most people pay out of pocket for masters programs, that's how many schools make a good chunk of money. Some schools offer funding for top applicants into their masters programs, but it's rare.

PhD programs are funded because as a PhD student, you work for the school in terms of research (they own your thesis) and teaching responsibilities (TA-ing). Masters programs are usually not funded because most masters programs are coursework-based, and thus you are not doing work for the school, but they are working for you.
 

This is my understanding, correct me if I'm wrong.