Whoa, oops. Forgot that I owed you a response to this comment. Sorry about that!
My husband didn't receive any sort of financial assistance (in the form of scholarships, grants or a TA job) for his Masters degree over here. (Basically, we were lucky that we'd saved up enough money to pay for it ourselves.) Even so, I do think we ended up paying less in tuition than we would have if he'd gone to a comparable grad program in the US. Most masters programs in his field are two year degrees in the US, for one thing, as opposed to the one year MSc program that it was over here. Basically, though, finding funding for a Masters is hard. For his PhD, on the other hand, which he started this year, he's received scholarships from the university that completely cover his tuition, and, on top of that, he has a TA job, which although it doesn't pay great, it's something. (Also, his PhD program here is meant to take three years, as opposed to the four or five it would be expected to take in the US.)
I should probably mention that we're talking about an MSc in Genetics and a PhD in Psychology here, from a Scottish university. I have no idea how things might be different under the English university system. At least up here, I think it might be easier to get a TA job as an MSc student if you're in the Humanities -- my department (History) has a couple of MSc students tutoring on first and second year undergraduate courses.
I can't remember what else I was going to say here. All in all, I think while he may have been more likely to get a scholarship to cover his masters program in the US, I think we'd still probably have ended up taking out loans, something we fortunately didn't have to do here. He'll finish grad school probably at least two years sooner than he would have been likely to in the US. And, not least of all, we get to live over here instead of in the US. So, that's our experience with grad school over here so far. Uh, hope that was a little bit informative?
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carisma_sensei
no subject
Date: 2009-01-18 10:52 pm (UTC)My husband didn't receive any sort of financial assistance (in the form of scholarships, grants or a TA job) for his Masters degree over here. (Basically, we were lucky that we'd saved up enough money to pay for it ourselves.) Even so, I do think we ended up paying less in tuition than we would have if he'd gone to a comparable grad program in the US. Most masters programs in his field are two year degrees in the US, for one thing, as opposed to the one year MSc program that it was over here. Basically, though, finding funding for a Masters is hard. For his PhD, on the other hand, which he started this year, he's received scholarships from the university that completely cover his tuition, and, on top of that, he has a TA job, which although it doesn't pay great, it's something. (Also, his PhD program here is meant to take three years, as opposed to the four or five it would be expected to take in the US.)
I should probably mention that we're talking about an MSc in Genetics and a PhD in Psychology here, from a Scottish university. I have no idea how things might be different under the English university system. At least up here, I think it might be easier to get a TA job as an MSc student if you're in the Humanities -- my department (History) has a couple of MSc students tutoring on first and second year undergraduate courses.
I can't remember what else I was going to say here. All in all, I think while he may have been more likely to get a scholarship to cover his masters program in the US, I think we'd still probably have ended up taking out loans, something we fortunately didn't have to do here. He'll finish grad school probably at least two years sooner than he would have been likely to in the US. And, not least of all, we get to live over here instead of in the US. So, that's our experience with grad school over here so far. Uh, hope that was a little bit informative?