Put Grad School Within My Grasp

Washington Post ^ | July 25, 2006 | Sui Lang Panoke

[Bubba_Leroy]

s access to graduate education in America exclusively for the upper class?

As a first-year graduate student struggling to make ends meet, I believe the answer is yes. In my experience, searching for funding to pay the extensive costs of my higher education has been an upward climb leading only to dead ends.

I am a single mother who qualifies for the maximum amount in federal aid for graduate students. But this amount barely covers my tuition; paying for housing, books and living expenses is up to me.

[Dumb_Ox]

I fully empathize with this woman. Society has failed to give me free money, too. That they don't recognize my inherent greatness is one of the mysteries of the universe.

[nyconse]

I know tons of mother's (single and otherwise) who paid for their own education while working fulltime. You choose to have a child. If you do this, your future is limited by your responsibilities. Maybe you have to go the night school route or today you can take classes on the internet.

[bourbon]

nice to meet you, chief!

[HamiltonJay]

Stipends at most universities are designed to give the person getting it enough money so they won't starve... but not so much they have any left for anything else...

Universities want their grad students working for them... on projects etc... so they are paid just enough to live on, but not so much that they will have any left over for anything else other than live in the labs.. which is where they want them to be.

A stipend is not designed nor intended to be income for a person let alone a woman or man and his or her kids to live comfortably on.

[AmishDude]

Yeah, switch to math. They don't pay you well, but they'll give you a stipend to be a TA. Otherwise, you're out of luck and should be.

[ccmay]

My paycheck stub says nearly 50% of everything I earn is getting distributed to someone else.

You're forgetting property taxes, sales taxes, and the tariffs and corporate taxes hidden in the cost of goods and services you buy. Add at least another 15% to the total. Then if you do manage to save any serious money despite the oppressive tax rates, the government will take half of it from your heirs when you die.

Apparently this whining looter isn't happy with the largesse she is already skimming.

If it ever becomes hard to get funding for graduate study in engineering or the hard sciences, and easy to get funded for humanities and "Public administration" studies, this country will be in greater danger than ever before.

-ccm

[SALChamps03]

How about getting off your ascz and getting a job?

What about my post led you to conclude that I don't have a job?

[aruanan]

As a first-year graduate student struggling to make ends meet, I believe the answer is yes. In my experience, searching for funding to pay the extensive costs of my higher education has been an upward climb leading only to dead ends.

Get enrolled in a graduate program that is worthwhile and needs folks with brains (such as the true sciences versus social "sciences") and you'll have it all paid for including a stipend to live on. Of course, you have to maintain a B average to stay in the program.