Ken Fortenberry wrote:

Well, here at Illinois exactly zero pay anything out of their
own pockets upon admission. Every single grad student in every
single lab (in engineering and the hard sciences) has both a
tuition waiver *AND* an assistantship of some sort that pays
them a pittance upon admission or they wouldn't be admitted.
Some elect to drop their assistantships after awhile if they
can afford the luxury of just taking classes but they are the
minority and they still have a tuition waiver.


Depends on the school. I was a foreign graduate student in the US from
about 1980 - 1984. The school where I did my Master's provided me with a
research assistantship, and my tuition costs were 1/3 of the resident
rate. I did my Doctorate at NCSU, was provided with an assistanship
there, but I paid the full resident rate for tuition (at least it wasn't
the non-resident rate).

The amount I received during those years wasn't a great deal. It was
hard to make ends meet. I still worked hard for my assistantship, and
made my contribution. Sure didn't feel like I was feeding at the trough.

Tim Lysyk