Comment by aabajian | Hacker News Reader

Comment by aabajian | Hacker News Reader

Hate to bash Stanford, but as a current master's student in CS, I've found their financial aid to be horrendous. The only real options are RAships and TAships. I don't consider these to be "aid packages" because they entail a tremendous amount of work. My current employer matched what was going to be offered by the TAship with less hours overall.

EDIT: Just for kicks, here are some emails here that demonstrate the reality of Stanford financial aid at the master's level.

Last quarter:

Nov. 17th: Hold on registration due to account balance... Nov. 18th: This is a friendly reminder that you have unpaid charges on your account... [PAYS $10,000 of tuition]

This quarter:

Feb. 16th: Your Stanford student account has been placed on hold* due to an outstanding balance... Feb. 17th: This is a friendly reminder that you have unpaid charges on your account... Mar. 18th: Student Account Notice... Today: We are sorry to inform you that you are not currently eligible to participate in the StanfordCardPlan...due to financial hold. [PAYS $5,000 of tuition]

This cycle has gone on for the past year now. For some context, I take two classes per quarter and live on-campus (on-campus housing is the cheapest you can get in Palo Alto). My total tuition + housing is $15,562 per quarter.

> I've found their financial aid to be horrendous. The only real options are RAships and TAships. I don't consider these to be "aid packages" because they entail a tremendous amount of work.

Not saying that being a TA is by any means "easy," but come on. Complaining about having to work while being at one of the greatest universities in the world is a bit whiny, is it not?

You don't have to go to graduate school. It's a choice. If you want to be a career academic, you're grinding it out now for what could be a cushy life.

If he wanted to be a career academic, he'd be in a PhD program and wouldn't have to pay... terminal Master's are expensive because they are "worth it."

Seriously, call the Waaambulance. A master's degree in CS at Stanford is basically like a business degree - you expect serious financial reward from this investment, and you'll most likely get it.

I agree. Back in my day most of the grad students TA'd and RA'd. No one was this entitled.

My point was that there's a noticeable difference in funding between master's students and undergrads. Plus it helps to vent :)

"Financial aid" as such in the U.S. typically means for undergraduate students, not graduate students. Graduate funding is a fairly different system, mostly consisting of competitive fellowships, research grants, and RA/TA jobs.

Yes, but at Stanford almost every engineering graduate class is 50% undergrad, 50% grad student, save for a few of the 100-series classes.

A CS masters is the last kind of degree Stanford would give good financial aid for. For a bachelors degree, you can get need based aid, and for a Ph.D, it's customary that you're pretty well subsidized, but masters programs are where they get you. I'm not sure why.

Because terminal masters are only sought by indivuals pursuing significant financial reward, and Stanford wants a cut.

A substantial proportion are also foreign students from wealthy families looking to get their students a prestigious U.S. degree. Such families are quite willing/able to pay, so there's no great incentive for Stanford to subsidize them.

PhD students are essentially junior employees of the university. They're either teaching or conducting research, so they're getting paid (largely in the form of free tuition).

Masters students are customers buying an extra year or two of education.

Masters programs at universities across the U.S. are just used as money makers for the schools.

They are cash cows for the universities.

The Fed gov gives unlimited loan money to anyone for grad school.

And why should they subsidize a degree that is supposed to put into a high paying job. Even if you were poor, you won't be after.

Ineptitude at the bursar's office is a little off topic, and it isn't unique to Stanford. I'm sure HN's users could fill thread after thread with stories.

> The only real options are RAships and TAships

Having been in that exact situation before, I wouldn't complain too specifically about Stanford's master in CS. That department makes it really easy to get a TA/RA (I'm comparing with my friends in less trendy fields of study), and while they represent a non-negligible amount of work, I think they are perfectly manageable at the graduate level. So while it's not financial aid, it actually makes it possible to go through the whole program with a positive net balance. Now I understand that the absence of guaranteed funding can feel scary for many, although the current state of the job market should greatly reduce their fears.

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