[rbg81]

If you are an American in a STEM field and a full time Grad student, you should get paid to go. If you are paying, then you are doing something very, very wrong.

[Think free or die]

"If you are an American in a STEM field and a full time Grad student, you should get paid to go. If you are paying, then you are doing something very, very wrong."

We were pleasantly surprised at the financial package our son received for his graduate studies. He earned a BSE and has gone on to a PhD program in Physics. He has a full tuition stipend, signing bonus, and will earn enough through assistantships that he anticipates coming out of grad school pretty much revenue neutral. He's in a great location for outdoor sports that he enjoys and even with the cost of some of those activities and high rent in the area, he should be OK financially. When he first started talking about his plans I thought he'd be taking on loans or drawing down his savings, but it doesn't seem so.

[Kirkwood]

Very true. I was paid the entire way through grad school because being American I could speak english fluently and teach several courses along the way. Many of the foreign students could barely speak more than a handful of words in english their first few years here, and the ones who knew english well could barely be understood. It would be like me trying to speak fluent mandarin.