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Possibilities for Financial Support of Graduate Studies (May 2009)

Overview

At the Master's Degree level, most students (nationwide) are expected to cover the costs (tuition, etc.) of their graduate studies out of their own resources. Our department does make every effort, however, to provide some level of support for exceptional graduate applicants; our aim is to recruit and retain the most talented graduate students possible. The purpose of this document is to outline the possibilities for financial support that exist in our department.

Graduate Assistantships (GA)

By far the most common mechanism for supporting exceptional graduate students at U.S. universities is through graduate assistantships. The overall model for an assistantship includes:

• Some level of stipend, in exchange for some number of hours of invested work per week.
• Potentially some level of health insurance, depending on the level of support offered.
• Usually some level of tuition reduction
• Closer involvement with faculty as research or teaching staff.

The exact nature of the work being done and the amount of support received varies significantly --- not just between assignments, but also as guidelines at NAU evolve from year to year. Overall there are two forms of GAs: Research Assistantships (RA) and Teaching Assistantship (TA). These two possible assignments differ primarily based on the nature of work involved and how they are awarded.

Teaching Assistantship (TA). The job description for a TA centers, as you might expect, around teaching. TAs are typically assigned to assist professors with certain courses, e.g., TAs are often assigned to organize and deliver the required laboratory sections associated with the class. Other possible job duties might include preparing and delivering guest lectures, grading assignments, and preparing class projects. Some number of teaching assistantships are provided to the department every year; teaching assistantships are distrubuted by the department chairperson, in consultation with faculty. Some positive qualifications for a teaching assistantship include strong organization skills, excellent verbal communication skills, and past experience in teaching.

TAs may be offered on a partial or full basis, depending on available funding and on how much teaching support the department will require during the period of engagement. The benefits associated with a given level of effort are set by the administration; as of Spring 2009, the benefits were as follows:

Weekly time commitment	Benefits: (to qualify, your appointment must cover the entire semester)
10–19 hours per week	Pay tuition at resident rates, tuition remission of $2,121 ($1,060 in the fall and $1,061 in the spring).
20 hours per week (full-time)	Pay tuition at resident rates, tuition remission $4,242 ($2,121 in fall and $2,121 in spring); health insurance premium subsidy (if you enroll for health insurance).

 

Research Assistantship (RA). Without exception, RA's are funded by research grants submitted to outside agencies and awarded to various faculty members. Because these grants are based on achievement of certain research goals, RAs are selected based on their abilities in the particular research area, i.e., the extent to which they can assist the faculty member in completing the targeted research. Because they are based on currently active research grants, the availability of RAs may vary widely from year to year. RAs are not distributed by the computer science department at all; decisions about RAs to fund and who to award them to are made by the faculty member leading the funded research project. Thus, RAs are frequently awarded to graduate students already in the graduate program, based on strong performance observed by the awarding faculty member, and/or discussions and connections made between the graduate student and the faculty member with a grant. For instance, a faculty member looking for an RA to staff a newly awarded grant would frequently recruit a graduate student with outstanding qualifications for the particular work in question. On short, RAs are linked to grants and are awarded directly by the faculty managing those grants.

Benefits are similar for RAs as for TAs except that --- at the sole discretion of the supervising faculty member (who is Principle Investigator on a grant) --- the stipend for the RA may be up to 150% of the standard rate set for TAs. The motivation for this is that research faculty must have some flexibility to make competitive offers to extraordinarily talented graduate students with special skills needed for specific research projects. Again, RAs may vary in the number of hours per week committed to the research project, with stipend pro-rated accordingly.

All GAs (that is, both RAs and TAs) are typically awarded on an annual academic year basis, but may also be awarded for individual semesters depending on funding other factors. In any case, GAs are awarded for the particular time period in question, with no guarantee of further support beyond that period. In funding GAs, we do prioritize continued support of existing GAs, meaning that once you have been awarded support, you will --- assuming satisfactory performance of associated duties --- be given priority for further funding.

Other possible forms of financial support

While GAs are the most common form of graduate financial support, a number of other options exist:

• Outside scholarships. We support talented graduate students in applying for outside financial support. For instance, we have been successful in winning lucrative Science Foundation Arizona (SfAZ) scholarship for our students.
• Paid Research Assistants. It is common for both graduates and undergraduates to work as research assistants on faculty research projects on an hourly-wage basis. In computer science, this usually means being a paid programmer on a research effort, involving an investment of a certain number of work hours per week. Although such hourly-wage jobs are not as advantageous as a GA, they do offer the possibility to earn a substantial amount of money...and can lead to a transition to an RA-ship in the future if you impress the faculty member with your initiative, reliability and creativity.
• Hourly wage on campus. Students are used to staff many clerical, receptionist, and other positions on campus. The hourly wages for this sort of work vary, but are typically less than what paid research programmers are able to earn.
• Off-campus employment. Faculty have a variety of local contacts and, once they have gotten to know a graduate student and the level of work he/she is able to perform, they are typically happy to recommend a student for part-time employment outside the university.

As noted above, the overall goal of graduate financial support is to benefit the department, by allowing us to attract and retain exceptional graduate candidates. Thus, key factors in being offered financial support (i.e. GA or hourly assistant) are high scores on entrance exams (e.g. the GRE), strong academic performance in graduate coursework, particular suitability for the particular assignment at hand, and a faculty member's personal knowledge as to the specific qualifications of particular graduate students.

As is the nationwide norm, NAU Graduate College policy limits the total number of hours that graduate students may be employed during graduate studies to 20 hours/week. This total includes all forms of employment on-campus or off-campus.