Frustrated with Financial Aid Lies

[neil]

I am so annoyed right now. Having heard back from a university that says "You're in! We'd love to fund you but our funding is way down this year so we can't" I'm really annoyed at them seeing as all their literature and people said "We fund nearly all our students".

Why waste my time and money when you know full well you can only support a couple (literally) of students?

It annoys me even more when they say "pay for your first year and we might be able to fund the rest". Talk about dangling the carrot.

[Optimistic]

Are you applying to MA or PhD programs? If its an MA program, I think its pretty normal to not get funding, but if its a PhD, then that does seem odd. Good luck, I hope everything works out for you!

[neil]

MS in CS.

I know MS students get less than PhD students, but most of the places I applied have a lot more MS students than PhD students. Some places I didn't apply to because they explicitly said "highly unlikely for MS applicants" with regards to funding.

Just bugs me that some places have misled me into thinking that funding was widely available when it clearly isn't.

[daseinplushie]

Is this is a state university or a private school? Since state schools are so dependent on money from the government, cuts in state funding to schools sometimes results in drastic--and unexpected--cuts in departmental funding. It's possible that they anticipated being able to fund a lot more students, based on the amount the department had received in previous years, but were blindsided at the last moment.

[neil]

Yes, I'm sure you're right. My post sounds silly now when I look at it. I was just upset and angry when I wrote it. My #1 pick told me they lost 2/3's of their assistantships so couldn't give me funding.

[daseinplushie]

Oh no, it's not silly at all. I just know this because I happened to spend my first three years of undergrad at a state university during the height of a budget crisis. I spent a lot of that time working in labs with grad students, so I became pretty familiar with some of the departmental budget issues

[santana]

Lies are lies. The first impression is correct, I am afraid. I have been in a place where officially I was told that only about 50% od grads are funded on the first year but after passing qualifying all of them are funded.

This is a typical marketing lie.

The graduate students I met told me they fund nearly everybody. I gathered they have a waiting list and a "waiting funding list." So there are three groups of applicants with chances: those that have both right away, those that have admission only, and those that have nothing whatsoever. Of course, there is the largest group, the fourth one - those rejected right away.

You always depend on the group in front of you. If those in the group in front of you drop out, you move up. Else you are left hanging.

There is a heck of a lot of politics in higher education, as late D. P. Moynihan put it nicely - "because the stakes are so low."

[euges429]

I am so annoyed right now. Having heard back from a university that says "You're in! We'd love to fund you but our funding is way down this year so we can't" I'm really annoyed at them seeing as all their literature and people said "We fund nearly all our students".

Why waste my time and money when you know full well you can only support a couple (literally) of students?

It annoys me even more when they say "pay for your first year and we might be able to fund the rest". Talk about dangling the carrot.

Can you not read? The website didn't say EVERY student is funded, just "nearly." You're misreading the site. You should be blaming yourself. I'm sorry to be frank, but you really should. They never guaranteed they would be able to fund you if you were admitted.

[luvalicious]

I sure hope that, almost a full year later, he's over it

But yeah, I don't really take that literally, when they say they fund "everybody" or "nearly everybody" or whatever. There's always a chance, I think.