Academic funding?

[ishtat]

I am developing a character for a story and this person has gained a bachelors degree in another country and has been invited to study by research for a science/maths Doctorate (Phd) in the USA.

Assuming either:-

1. this person is a solid candidate how might such a programme be funded these days, and what would the candidate be expected to do for the institution involved.

or 2 This person is an absolutely outstanding candidate who would be competed for by many universities. What sort of funding might be available.

Although I have had some academic experience myself that was a long time ago and I don,t want to make unnecessary errors.

Thanks.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I've never really heard of universities recruiting people for MS or PhD level degrees. For post-docs, yes. That happens all the time, but a scholar usually has to prove him or herself at the PhD level before anyone really takes notice.

What does occasionally happen is a teacher will mentor an especially gifted student and, if the professor should go to work for a different school, he'll take the student with him. In that case the professor can usually arrange some sort of grant or scholarship for the student. Often the professor will have his own research grant and he'll just hire the student to work on the project as he pursues a higher degree.

I suppose if someone did really exceptional work as an undergrad, he might be recruited by a Professor whose interests are in the same area, in which case the professor might arrange grant or scholarship money.

 

[lesbiaphrodite]

I am unfamiliar with cases in which universities recruit in this fashion for doctoral candidates. I know you could certainly get a research grant or a research assistantship though if you opted to study at a given university.

 

[damppanties]

I am unfamiliar with cases in which universities recruit in this fashion for doctoral candidates. I know you could certainly get a research grant or a research assistantship though if you opted to study at a given university.

For PhD students, there's also a Teaching Assistantship. I know, cos the doctoral students are eating up MY chances of assistantships.

 

[lesbiaphrodite]

For PhD students, there's also a Teaching Assistantship. I know, cos the doctoral students are eating up MY chances of assistantships.

Yes, I empathize. Those things are hard to come by and to keep. I had a teaching assistantship and that's how I paid for my master's degree. I was poor as Job's turkey, but I got the degree. LOL.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

For PhD students, there's also a Teaching Assistantship. I know, cos the doctoral students are eating up MY chances of assistantships.

But no one is going to lure a BS to go to grad school by offering them a TA. When I went to school, all grad students had to TA and it's a hard and thankless task. You handle the teaching while your professor looks after his pet research, and your pay is miniscule.

 

[cloudy]

Something to keep in mind: no one goes straight to PhD work after an undergraduate degree. There's a master's degree in the middle that has to be finished before even starting PhD work.

 

[freshface]

Something to keep in mind: no one goes straight to PhD work after an undergraduate degree. There's a master's degree in the middle that has to be finished before even starting PhD work.

That depends on the career field. My chemist brother went straight from undergrad to PhD. I seem to recall Biology working the same way.

 

[sr71plt]

Such studies (especially in the sciences and maths) are funded in several ways--to include not only tuition/fees/books but also a living stipend. The universities have scholarships of their own for promising students, corporations fund for promising university graduates who they want to recruit, government departments do the same, and, in the case you cite, foreign governments send their own students to U.S. universities at full tuition/pay (the Chinese are doing a lot of this--same with some Middle Eastern countries).

My son, for instance, to get his Ph.D in Computer Sciences (virtual reality--and going straight from the B.S. in Engineering to a Ph.D, incidentally) was offered full scholarship/living stipend in all of the first three ways. (As an undergraduate he was an assistant to Randy Pausch of the Last Lecture fame.) Both his undergraduate university and another one (which is where he went) offered him full research grants--both doing applied research for a professor's project and as a teaching assistant--taking the labs for undergraduate courses. He had worked at the Naval Lab during one of his undergraduate summers and was offered a full scholarship from that government office for a commitment to return to them after the Ph.D. was completed. And he was offered a full research scholarship by a defense contractor in New Jersy if he'd do the same (after six years as a university assistant professor himself, my son went to work for this contractor--which gave him what they would have given him earlier as a signing bonus).

So, for tuition/living support they work as teaching assistants in undergraduate classes and as researchers on grants the professors have for either consulting or applied research for corporations/government departments.

In another field, when I headed a government international relations analysis division, I had a budget line entry to cover contracting of graduate students both for direct research and to start developing them to work for us after they finished their Ph.Ds. I funded a couple at enough to cover their tuition at least--both of these were also living off of university scholarships.

 

[Vermilion]

That depends on the career field. My chemist brother went straight from undergrad to PhD. I seem to recall Biology working the same way.

Dunno about in the states, but over here you do need the Masters before doing a PhD, as Cloudy said. However - several of the Science/Engineering/Maths type subjects offer integrated Masters degrees where you progress straight through from first year to Masters level. The course is a year longer than a Bachelors and technically you posess a Bachelors and a Masters at the end.

As said before, also, universities aren't gonna chase someone who hasn;t proved themself through a PhD. The only way they're gonna get offered funding at a new uni is if, as mentioned before, they followed a Supervising Professor with a common research interest who'd be able to allocate them some funding for their research.

 

[sr71plt]

Dunno about in the states, but over here you do need the Masters before doing a PhD, as Cloudy said. However - several of the Science/Engineering/Maths type subjects offer integrated Masters degrees where you progress straight through from first year to Masters level. The course is a year longer than a Bachelors and technically you posess a Bachelors and a Masters at the end.

As said before, also, universities aren't gonna chase someone who hasn;t proved themself through a PhD. The only way they're gonna get offered funding at a new uni is if, as mentioned before, they followed a Supervising Professor with a common research interest who'd be able to allocate them some funding for their research.

As I noted, it's possible to go straight from B.S. to Ph.D. in the sciences. When my son opted for that, I begged him to do a masters thesis and to at least pin that down, but he opted to bypass it. He was born right when I finished my first masters, intending to go on to the doctorate, but him being born forced me into a full-time job. I subsequently got two more masters but never the doctorate. He was one-year married himself when his masters would have fallen, so I counseled him to take the safer road. He didn't and went straight on through (although, of course, when his #1 child came along, good ole dad provided additional support for his doctorate finish). The bypass road is open in the sciences in the States, though.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

When I got off Active Duty and went back to my alma mater, the department chair offered to sign me directly into the doctoral program, no interim MA required. Unfortunately, there was no market for history professors at the time so I went out into the cold, cruel world instead. As it turned out, about the time I would have gotten my doctorate, all manner of museum positions for Ph.D's opened up but who has a decent crystal ball? I surely don't.

 

[ishtat]

Thanks for all your help. My own experience was that I was able to miss out on the masters step but I had a reasonable BSc (hons) from a British Uni which probably helped. I was also fortunate enough to be a student in the days when we got grants(scholarships) which were sufficient to get you through without the need to work (except in vacations).

My own daughter has recently been headhunted into a US Ivy League college for a maths/ physics doctorate. It seemed to come out of the blue but I suspect the influence of one of her professors. It seems from the comments that experience is a little unusual.

Once again, thank you .

 

[fl_mike]

I have a major issue with this, first is this a state school or a private university (if its private than who cares about the money). If it’s a state school then why give someone outside of America a free ride unless that person has to spend 10 years in America.

Guess my point, American’s pay taxes and give this person a free ride. After graduating the person goes back to his or her country and creates products/services to compete against America?

I am developing a character for a story and this person has gained a bachelors degree in another country and has been invited to study by research for a science/maths Doctorate (Phd) in the USA.

Assuming either:-

1. this person is a solid candidate how might such a programme be funded these days, and what would the candidate be expected to do for the institution involved.

or 2 This person is an absolutely outstanding candidate who would be competed for by many universities. What sort of funding might be available.

Although I have had some academic experience myself that was a long time ago and I don,t want to make unnecessary errors.

Thanks.

 

[sr71plt]

I have a major issue with this, first is this a state school or a private university (if its private than who cares about the money). If it’s a state school then why give someone outside of America a free ride unless that person has to spend 10 years in America.

Guess my point, American’s pay taxes and give this person a free ride. After graduating the person goes back to his or her country and creates products/services to compete against America?

The grants themselves have no public/private school differentiation. I noted at least four sources for the grants, only one of which was the school itself. And even when the school is forking over the support, it's always or nearly always (can't ever say never) being drawn from a donor account, not the state treasury.

There are other issues at play, though. First, universities--even public universities--seek foreign students for diversity sake. Americans are already insular enough not to need to continue that through their whole lives. Opening up to a global environment is seen by educators as a needed part of education.

Then again, on a smaller scale, giving foreign students incentive to study in the United States is done for the same reason that we have a Fulbright Study program and USIA programs to bring scientists, businessmen, educators, and artists into the United States for short-term indoctrination and study programs. When you influence key people in a foreign country's structure to be American-favorable/exposed, this pays off in all of the areas where these people work--government, business, education, the arts. In a country like Iran, it makes a whole heck of a lot of difference that the head of the Majlis was educated at Stanford rather than Pyongyang U.

Also, when you bring someone from Calcutta to train to be a docter in the United States, you usually wind up with a well-trained doctor who doesn't go back to India (or at least not for a long time) but is willing to work in clinics where you can't get an America-raised doctor to set a foot in. Look around and do a check on the accent of those doctors in small town clinics and ERs. (And even if they go back to Calcutta, you have a doctor there on site to take care of the needs there and not pulling at Americans to go there on mercy missions--which Americans are generous-hearted enough to do as needed.)

Is that enough to chomp on for awhile? This is a globe we live on; Isolationism doesn't work in so many dimensions. Economics, ideology, and politics aren't boundary friendly.

 

[fl_mike]

we do live in a global market. I see your point.

kind on those lines....
there was someting in the stiumlas about purchasing a new car's and one can write off the sales tax (but i think he or she had to purchase an american car)? if that is true, what is an american car?

The grants themselves have no public/private school differentiation. I noted at least four sources for the grants, only one of which was the school itself. And even when the school is forking over the support, it's always or nearly always (can't ever say never) being drawn from a donor account, not the state treasury.

There are other issues at play, though. First, universities--even public universities--seek foreign students for diversity sake. Americans are already insular enough not to need to continue that through their whole lives. Opening up to a global environment is seen by educators as a needed part of education.

Then again, on a smaller scale, giving foreign students incentive to study in the United States is done for the same reason that we have a Fulbright Study program and USIA programs to bring scientists, businessmen, educators, and artists into the United States for short-term indoctrination and study programs. When you influence key people in a foreign country's structure to be American-favorable/exposed, this pays off in all of the areas where these people work--government, business, education, the arts. In a country like Iran, it makes a whole heck of a lot of difference that the head of the Majlis was educated at Stanford rather than Pyongyang U.

Also, when you bring someone from Calcutta to train to be a docter in the United States, you usually wind up with a well-trained doctor who doesn't go back to India (or at least not for a long time) but is willing to work in clinics where you can't get an America-raised doctor to set a foot in. Look around and do a check on the accent of those doctors in small town clinics and ERs. (And even if they go back to Calcutta, you have a doctor there on site to take care of the needs there and not pulling at Americans to go there on mercy missions--which Americans are generous-hearted enough to do as needed.)

Is that enough to chomp on for awhile? This is a globe we live on; Isolationism doesn't work in so many dimensions. Economics, ideology, and politics aren't boundary friendly.

 

[sr71plt]

what is an american car?

Beats me.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Well, Mercedes Benz has a manufacturing plant in Alabama . . .

 

[sweetness6280]

Headhunting, while not common, does occur in the sciences/technology discplines, not so much in the Liberal Arts disciplines, where it is highly competitive and there are often hundreds of applicants for 5 - 10 spots. Usually if an undergrad student is sought out, it is because she has distinguished herself in some way (i.e research, publication, presenting at a conference, etc.). Most university's, even small ones, actively recruit in foreign countries.

The package offered depends upon the university. An example for one private university (English PhD) is: tuition rebate, 27,000 year stipend, private office, computer, medical coverage, and travel reimbursement after the 1st year. Compare that to a small state university who can offer 700 a month and that's about it.

While universities still offer a Master's, the wave of the future seems to be going directly from a Bachelor's program to the PhD. Most of these programs will confer the Master's after a specific set of coursework is completed, and usually requires a comps test. Each program is different, of course.

Funding from outside the university becomes more complicated. Stafford loans, Grad Plus loans, alternative funding loans, and scholarships are the most common. There are grants out there, but you have to look for them. Pell grants are not available for graduate students.

 

[damppanties]

But no one is going to lure a BS to go to grad school by offering them a TA. When I went to school, all grad students had to TA and it's a hard and thankless task. You handle the teaching while your professor looks after his pet research, and your pay is miniscule.

Don't care. Usually a tuition waiver accompanies an assistantship. Would totally do that.

 

[sr71plt]

Don't care. Usually a tuition waiver accompanies an assistantship. Would totally do that.

Yeah, in this case, Dr. M. oversteps himself with the "nobody would" statement (such absolutes usually do wind up with egg on someone's face). I went through my first MA with no support whatsoever except for a TA tuition waiver--and a part-time job in the university library. And was happy to get that. People do what they have to do to get their education.