Understanding an offer from a uni

[Pillowwww]

So I'm a student from the UK applying to some US unis for a PhD in physics.

 

About a week or so ago I received an offer from the University of Oklahoma, which offered a $19,200 stipend for being a TA.

The offer also stated the department gives a full tuition waiver and a health plan, however it says I will also need to pay about $4,000 in fees still, or at least I think it does. I'll copy and paste the bit about the details they gave me for the tuition, fees and health plan.

Financial details for the tuition, fees, and health plan. We provide this information to assist you in comparing offers from different universities. While we have made an effort to be as accurate as possible, the numbers for the 2016-2017 academic year have not yet been announced. We can provide you with the numbers for the current academic year. The Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education charge tuition on a two tiered system. Oklahoma residents pay only the resident tuition. Non-Oklahoma residents pay the non-resident tuition in addition to the resident tuition. The typical course load is three 3 credit hour courses per semester. All graduate students receive a full tuition waiver from the Graduate College, consisting of non-resident tuition ($549.00/credit hour) and resident tuition ($190.70/credit hour). Until you complete the qualifying exam and our specialist exam, the Department requires you to register for 9 credit hours per semester. After you have completed those requirements, you are only required to register for 5 credit hours per semester.  All first year students also enroll in a 1 credit hour Introduction to Research course your first semester—thus your first semester will be 10 credit hours. The value of the waived tuition is $15,058 in your first year. The University assesses fees from all students; the breakdown is $191.50 per semester plus $203.20/credit hour for classes within the College of Arts & Sciences. For your initial 19-credit-hour year, your fees total $4249/yr, but will drop to $2415/yr after you pass your specialist exam. A student health plan (worth $1200/yr) for graduate assistants is available to you at no cost. In summary, the typical first and second year Physics and Astronomy graduate student will receive waivers of tuition and health insurance worth $15,058/yr and pay $4249/yr in out-of-pocket fees.

 

Am I understanding this correctly, that they're basically offering me effectively $15,000 as a stipend? I mean, that seems like a ridiculous offer, and I couldn't understand why anyone would ever take that.

[TakeruK]

I believe you are understanding it correctly. You should check with the faculty and current students if you are not sure. One thing you could ask directly is that it says the value of waived tuition is $15,058 in your first year, but can this tuition waiver also be used towards fees? It does not sound like it though.

Unfortunately, some schools just give really bad stipend offers because they have very limited funding for students. At some programs, fees are included in your stipend package---for example, my funding offer includes all fees paid as well as tuition. However, I do pay out of pocket for health insurance, but my health plan is worth $2700/year and I pay $450/year for it. You should also consider your own health needs and compare insurance plans between schools!

But before I would dismiss this as a stipend too low to be worth considering, I would check three things:

1. What is the cost of living at University of Oklahoma like? I know nothing about the costs there, but if you can live up to your standards with this stipend, then it might make sense. 

2. Is this the only stipend source you can have? For example, is there a chance to earn more as an RA in the future? Or to win a fellowship (hard to do as an international student though). Also, is this the 9-month stipend (as TA work isn't done in the summer typically) and would you get a different RA stipend on top of this stipend for the summer months? Usually this would be explicit in the letter but you should still check. 

3. Even if the low stipend is enough to live on, you should find out if the low stipend is a sign of lack of funding in general at this department. What are your resources for other things you might want money for in the future (e.g. does the school or department offer a travel fund?). And you should talk to your potential advisors to find out what kind of funding sources they have to pay for your research and related costs (e.g. page charges, conference travel, computer/other equipment etc.)

I think these are important things to find out. I also think it's okay to decline an offer solely because the stipend is too low to live on. 

[Pillowwww]

Thanks for the reply! Also I must apologise, reading over my original question, it sounded a bit incredulous. I didn't intend for that.

 

You raise some good points. I think the cost of living in Oklahoma is fairly low, but the offered stipend still doesn't leave me with much comfort.

 

The offered stipend is for $1600/month during term, and then $1800/month for the summer months, so the $19,600(accidentally put 200 above) was for a whole 12 month period. The letter also mentioned that once I become an RA the stipend will increase to about $21,600 a year, but this isn't until I pass the qualifying exams, which I would hope to do as soon as possible anyway.

As far as I'm aware there aren't any scholarships available to me, as I am as you said an international student, so it would pretty much just be living on the stipend.

I'll definitely inquire about your 3rd point though. It isn't very clear if they offer any expense towards conference travel and things. I'm not too worried about equipment cost, as I'm applying for particle physics, and I've got my own laptop and pc to work on anyway.

 

Although, also, at the end of the day this was my least favourite place to go anyway, as I applied more on the suggestion from a current professor, as he suggested the research they do there would be a good fit for me (which I realise now was a bad reason to apply, but oh well). Thanks again for the help!

[rising_star]

Three things come to mind:

1) $4K/year in fees is really high. Higher than most public institutions (state universities) that I've heard of. So, I would double check on that amount, just to ensure there wasn't a typo or calculation error made somewhere.

2) I wouldn't characterize as ~$16K/year in Norman, OK as an incredibly low stipend for a few reasons. One is because that is actually similar to the stipend amount in the humanities at a variety of institutions (which is to say that there are many applicants here who would be grateful for a stipend of that amount). The other is because the cost of living in Norman is incredibly low according to the cost of living calculator I just used (equivalent to ~$32K/year in Brooklyn, NY for example). 

3) Why is applying to a school that's a good research fit a bad idea? I guess I'm missing something but, I thought most people here wanted to go to the best place for their research...