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Comment by LisaG | Hacker News Reader

That is true at the graduate level. If you pursue a PhD in life science, physical science or computer science your tuition is waived and you (usually) get a stipend. If you want a PhD in liberal arts you have to pay tuition.

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Are you just saying/guessing this? I have a PhD in Classics, and although I did my graduate work 20 years ago, I'm still in contact with people in that field. The standard is that for a five year program, nearly everyone can expect (1) to be a TA for 1-3 years (and receive pay that way), (2) to receive a writing fellowship (often from your university) for 1-2 years (and thus be able to receive pay while focusing on a dissertation) or (3) to hit the jackpot and receive an external grant for 1-5 years which spares you from some of the teaching duties in (1). In addition to that, everyone (except non-US citizens) has his or her formal tuition waived by some bizarre sleight-of-hand that the university does with itself.

Let me stress that since Rariel brings it up below: nobody pays tuition (again, except non-US citizens).

People take out loans for extra money (the grants and TA stipends ranged in the 9,000-12,000 dollar range per year in my time, 1992-1997), but nobody pays their tuition. One standard joke was that we were so much better off than the professional students (Business, Med School, Law School) because they did pay tution. I never paid a dime in tuition and finished graduate school with nothing more than mild (< $3,000) credit card debt.

I have no reason to believe that this system has changed. Do you have any sources for your claim?

Liberal arts PhDs get tuition wavers and stipends from being TAs. That's how universities staff intro writing and language courses.

Somewhat, but most liberal arts PhDs only get a small stipend from being a TA plus in-state tuition if it's a public University. Maybe what you're thinking about is being funded, that allows you to get your PhD essentially for free. I'm sure that is available for STEM as well?

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