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More information for current and prospective students
Sources of financial support
Bill Currie
Graduate school can be a challenge not only academically, but also in terms of supporting yourself and financing your graduate work. Your costs as a graduate student will fall into three main areas: tuition, living expenses, and research costs (the tangible costs of any research that you choose to do for a project, thesis, or dissertation).
Graduate students in SNRE are supported in a wide variety of different ways and each individual student usually uses a mixture of sources of support. The faculty and staff at the School (including those in the Office of Academic Programs, OAP) work to help students find and apply for various sources of financial support. We also work to provide our own fellowships and assistantships, through the School and through faculty research, where we can. But we have more students than can be supported through these. For many students, financing graduate school includes some amount of student loans to cover tuition costs.
Obviously it is in your best interest to seek and apply for various sources of support and to understand the limitations, freedoms, or expectations that go along with each type. It is also important to note that each particular source of support is typically looking for students with specific skills, course work, accomplishments, or career goals, and that these vary dramatically from one source of support to the next. Your efforts to obtain support are more likely to be successful if you can target programs or sources where you are a strong candidate and a good fit.
What follows is a brief outline of some of the different types of support, which can be confusing, particularly for new graduate students. For even more information, see the SNRE web page on financial aid, which includes a searchable database of funding sources, and follow some of the links below.
Fellowships and grants given through UM
Fellowships and grants given through UM are typically funds that are given to students to help them cover the costs of attending graduate school. They usually carry few other expectations or duties, only the expectation to take courses and make academic progress. Depending on the fellowship, they may carry the expectation of doing original research work toward a thesis or dissertation and publishing the results.
While these are among the best types of support to obtain, they are limited in number. Students who are able to obtain them often have highly relevant prior professional experience, career goals that align closely with the goals of the foundation or institute providing the funds, write exceptionally strong essays, have published peer-reviewed articles, or have other distinctive and highly relevant achievements. Also, many students who are able to obtain such fellowships do so after having excelled in graduate school with or without other support for a year to several years.
SNRE offers a certain number of incentive fellowships each year to incoming students, sometimes enough to cover the first term of tuition. Rackham (The Graduate School at UM) also awards some fellowships and grants to graduate students, primarily in small amounts to help cover the costs of a small research project or travel to a scholarly or professional conference, more rarely in large amounts to cover entire years of tuition
Another example of a fellowship available to Masters students at SNRE is the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF) Fellowship, which currently supports about 25 Masters students at SNRE. Masters students apply for these each year. (For specific deadlines, ask staff in the Office of Academic Programs [OAP], check the SNRE financial aid web page, or ask your advisor.)
An example of a fellowship available to PhD students at SNRE is the Graham Environmental Sustainability Institute (GESI) Fellowship. PhD students apply for these each year and they are awarded to about 10 new PhD students each year across all of UM. SNRE students are good candidates for these awards because of the nature of what they study.
Many more types of grants and fellowships are available. See the searchable database at the SNRE web page on financial aid.
Fellowships and grants given from outside UM
Many federal agencies and foundations award fellowships. Examples include National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships (NSF-GRFP), and EPA STAR Awards. Students apply for these at various times of year. The awards can range from a few hundred dollars to full financial support for tuition, stipend (living expenses), and research costs for multiple years. Normally, students apply for these directly, often with letters of recommendation from professors or previous employers.
Again, these are some of the best types of funding to obtain because they may require few additional duties of the student, only the expectation to take courses and make academic progress, and sometimes also the expectation to do original research toward a thesis or dissertation and to publish the results.
The applications for large fellowships can be quite involved, sometimes including writing a well-researched proposal. But applying for these is always worth the effort if you are a strong candidate and can write a well-targeted application or proposal. Sometimes students who are great candidates or fits for these, who are highly motivated to write a great 5-page paper for a class assignment, put very little effort into writing fellowship applications and proposals, which leaves professors scratching their heads to try to understand why. If you will put a big effort into writing a great paper for class, why not at least the same level of effort (or more) into a proposal that could pay the costs of graduate school?
Teaching Assistantships (GSIs)
In a teaching assistantship, a graduate student helps a professor deliver an undergraduate or graduate course, either by teaching laboratory sections, discussion sections, by planning and preparing class activities and helping during class, holding office hours to help students, and grading exams and papers. At UM, teaching assistants are called Graduate Student Instructors (GSIs). GSIs at UM are unionized (through the Graduate Employment Organization, GEO) and collectively negotiate the GSI selection process, their pay, health benefits, and other aspects of the job.
GSIships are assigned in a way at Michigan that differs from many other universities. Each term, every GSIship at the entire university is open and available to the best qualified candidate. The application and selection process is open and transparent. This means you can be sure that a GSIship has not been promised to another student in advance. When you are a prospective student applying to Michigan and comparing it to other universities, it is important to understand this. Other universities sometimes promise teaching assistantships a year or more in advance. But, while Michigan awards thousands of GSIships each year, they are assigned competitively and openly on a term by term basis.
GSIs typically recieve a stipend (pay for living expenses) plus a tuition waiver for the term in which they do the GSI, together with paid health insurance for that term. In return, they are typically expected to work an average of 20 hours per week over the course of the term. See this link for more information about the GSI application process and duties.
What does it take to get a GSIship? First, identify specific courses where you are a strong candidate, based on your undergraduate degree field, your prior course work, work experience, and particular expertise and skills. You apply separately for each course, and target your application essay for the specific course, paying close attention to the skills and duties listed by the professor. You can apply for GSIships outside of your own program or school. GSI selection is made by adacemic programs (e.g., Program in the Environment) with input from the professor for the course. From my perspective, professors are looking for two main sets of qualities and characteristics in a GSI. First, the knowledge, skills and experience needed (e.g. a computer language needed to teach a lab section). Second, a student who is a good communicator, manages their time well, is prepared, committed, and reliable.
Research Assistants (hourly) and Assistantships (GSRAs)
Professors at SNRE, in leading their own research programs, apply for and obtain research grants from a wide variety of funding sources, including agencies such as the US Forest Service, the EPA, the National Science Foundation, and so on. Professors write detailed research proposals that outline the research questions and approaches. Often these are submitted multiple times over a period of years, in a back-and-forth negotiation between the professor and the funding agency about the specific research questions, approaches, level of effort, and costs involved.
When these are successful, funds are given to the professor who then has the responsibility to ensure that the research is completed as described in the proposal. To help complete the work, the professor usually hires and supervises graduate students as assistants who are either paid hourly to do specific research tasks, or are supported by the term as Graduate Student Research Assistants (GSRAs). In both cases the professor hires the student directly.
Hourly paid research assistants are usually hired for a certain number of hours per week to do specific tasks such as field work, lab work, or computer work. This can be during the academic term or during the summer. Sometimes there is no expectation that the student will do a related project or thesis (but discuss this with the professor). Professors often hire hourly assistants from among the graduate students they advise, or students they do not advise.
GSRAs are research assistantships that provide a much higher level of support and, in return, come with a much higher level of expectations of the student. GSRAs are hired on a single term basis. GSRAs typically pay a stipend for the student (a fixed amount of money for the entire term, with the expectation that the student will be on campus doing the work for the entire term), pay the student's tuition for that term, and pay the student's health insurance (GradCare) for that term. It is important to note that all of these costs (not just the stipend) come out of the professor's research grant. As a result, there is a different set of expectations, both from the professor and the granting agency, of a GSRA student as compared to an hourly paid assistant.
One important expectation of a GSRA is that the student will be on campus the entire term and will work on the GSRA research every week the entire term. The term runs from September 1 to December 31 in the fall, and January 1 to April 30 in the winter. This includes fall break, spring (winter) break, exam week, and the time after exams (although in fall term, I normally expect the work to end on December 23rd). Even though the student is not paid by the hour, there is a rough hourly equivalent; a 50% GSRA, for example, has a work expectation of 20 to 24 hours per week throughout this period. If you plan to leave campus for a week for any reason (a friend's wedding, or an overseas field course), or you are taking 4 classes and you need all of your time to do class assignments, or you plan to leave campus on December 18 because your exams are over, you probably should not accept a GSRA for that term. (Or discuss with the professor, in advance, how to ensure you spend adequate time on the research and / or make up missed work). The GSRA work needs to be given priority on the same level as your class assignments; a good GSRA manages their time effectively through the term so that class assignments do not accumulate and then interfere with the research work.
Another important expectation often made of GSRA support is that the student will work on a thesis or dissertation on a topic closely related to the grant research and produce a peer-reviewed publication. The granting agency nearly always expects this if funds are being used to pay part of a student's tuition. It is important to discuss this, and other expectations, with the professor before agreeing to a GSRAship.
What is a professor looking for in selecting a student GSRA? First, professors normally only provide GSRA support to students that they advise. Next, they are looking for students with a strong intellectual and scholarly interest in the topic of the research and the skills and abilities to do the work. Equally important, they are looking for students who understand the commitment of time and intellectual energy needed, who are reliable, professional, able to work fairly independently, and able to manage their time and focus their efforts to make solid progress throughout the term.
Because of the difficulty in obtaining grants that will fund GSRAships and the high cost of a GSRAship to the research grant, many professors first hire a student as an hourly paid assistant or ask them to collaborate on a small research tasks to assess their work habits, productivity and reliability, before offering a GSRAship.
Where our graduate students find jobs after graduation
After completing their graduate degrees, on average our students find professional positions within 3-4 months. They work in government agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), private industry, consulting, academia, or in international settings. SNRE has a Career Services Office to help prepare students for their job searches and to find professional employment. This office tracks our graduates and prepared this summary of job sectors and types of positions found by our graduates.
Letters of Recommendation
Professors recognize that one of the most important things we do for graduate students, when asked, is to write letters of recommendation for fellowships or for post-graduation jobs. I like to use this as an opportunity to mentor students better and to write candid, confidential reference letters.
Download this pdf for an outline of Bill Currie's advice and policies on letters of recommendation.