EPP GRADUATE FAQ - Financial Support
Being admitted to an excellent, but expensive graduate school, such as Carnegie Mellon University, is generally only the first prerequisite for a student to enroll and attend. Most students require and receive some financial support to cover some or all of their tuition, and many receive a stipend for their living expenses.
- When you have been "admitted with aid pending," we haven't determined as yet whether and how much financial support we can provide you. We will contact you later in the process with an update.
- If you have been "admitted without aid," you will be responsible for paying your own tuition (currently $37,800 for the academic year 2011/2012, $18,900 per semester) and covering your own living expenses (average for a single person in Pittsburgh, approximately $26,600 per year, for a couple with one child, the cost would be approximately an additional $12,600 per year). If you have applied indicating that you have secured outside funding already, e.g., from your company or home county, then we may admit you "without aid" from the University, but with the recognition that your government, company, etc., will cover your tuition (and in some cases stipend, though your government or company may elect to pay your stipend to you directly, rather than through the University). If you are an international student, we will require you to provide documentation to prove that you have the financial resources to cover your tuition and living expenses prior to enrollment. If we admit you without aid, please don't come expecting to get aid after a semester or two. Come only if you can organize sufficient resources.
- If you are "admitted with full tuition and stipend support," we will pay your tuition and pay your stipend. Stipends for the 2011-2012 academic year will be $1,990 per month for students entering with a BS, and $2,015 per month for students entering with a M.S. or relevant work experience. Before you compare our stipend with offers you receive from other programs, consider the living expenses. Ours are relatively low in Pittsburgh. Also, it's a stipend to cover living expenses, not a salary indicative of your intellectual, economic, or spiritual worth. You're worth more, but that's not the purpose. If you decide to attend CMU or anywhere else primarily because of the amount of the stipend, you are probably not using the best judging criteria.
- If you are "admitted with tuition support only," we will pay your tuition, but you will not receive a stipend. International applicants in this case are required to provide documentation that they can cover their own living expenses prior to enrollment. In certain cases, we may offer "partial tuition support," for example, covering one half or two thirds of your tuition. You are then responsible for the rest. We may do this for students who we believe are good enough to succeed in our program, but for whom there are currently no available sources of research support. In this case, departmental funds (rather than outside research funds) are used to support the student. We usually expect such students to work actively after they arrive with faculty writing proposals for fellowships and research grants to cover their tuition, and hopefully provide stipend as well, for future years.
Where does the money for financial support of tuition and stipend come from?
As indicated above, most graduate students in the department are supported as research assistants on projects for government agencies, foundations or private industry. The budgets for these projects include funds for graduate student tuition and stipends, as well as other project costs, such as a fraction of the salaries for participating faculty, and administrative support, computing, travel for meetings and conferences, supplies and overhead. For a summary of the current research activities in the department, see the section of the web page on Research.
Students with fellowship support, for example, from the National Science Foundation, the US Department of Energy, or a private foundation, usually have some or all of their tuition paid directly by the fellowship granting organization, with stipend also generally funneled through the University to the student. Particular arrangements for tuition and stipend payment for students with their own outside support, e.g., from their government or company, are made on a case by case basis. The department also has funds to support a small number of students per year, though we generally like to restrict these funds to tuition or partial tuition support for new students, or to provide carry over (tuition and/or stipend) for more senior students when there has been an interruption or delay in outside funding.
For how long will my financial support be guaranteed?
Our support letters generally stipulate support for one academic year. So long as you remain in good academic standing and continue to exert reasonable effort and make reasonable progress on your research, we consider it our responsibility to find a way to support your continued studies. However, we expect you to help us in this endeavor. If outside research grant support does not materialize as we had hoped, or if your grant is ending, we will encourage, indeed expect you to apply for available fellowships and to help us in the writing of appropriate research proposals. If such efforts are made by the student, but are unsuccessful, we can usually find some other way to continue your funding. For that matter, we also encourage students with secure funding to apply for available fellowships, since success in this effort can free up project funds to support other students. In short, we view the need to generate funds for student support as a collective responsibility and a team effort. You may also view your role in this as good training for the real world you will undoubtedly face after graduation, be it in academia, industry, consulting or government research and management.
What about financial support and joint degrees?
If you want to do a joint MS or Ph.D. with some other department, the best kind of financial support to have is a fellowship. If you are supported on an EPP faculty member's research grant or contract, you will need to discuss with them whether the support can be used to cover the extra time and course work needed to complete the non-EPP part of the degree. Sometimes the courses for the other degree fit into what you need to do the research. But when they don't, there may be problems, since research assistantships support students to do specific research, not to take extra courses.
