How Graduate students get paid?

[dayanj]

Hi

I want to know how Graduate students get paid If they work under a professor?
I am an international student, and recently got into a lab, but still didn't talk about funding.
Can somebody suggest me what to discuss with professor?
I know they pay an hourly rate for GSR's, which is predetermined, and do they pay your tuition fee seperately ?
Pls clarify how the process go. Like if u are in a lab, how your tuition and living expenses covered typically,
and typical amounts/rates currently they pay in US.( should I bargain or just accept what he's saying?)
Thanks

DJ

[nayana]

Hi DJ,

I can try and answer some of your questions...

Graduate students can get paid in multiple ways for working under a professor:
1) Directly from the professors funds (through a research assistantship (RA))
2) Through a fellowship (which might not say that you have to work on anything specific and which you might have independently applied and received)
3) Through a teaching assistantship (in PhD programs you are supposed to do a certain number of TAs and for those semesters, your funding come from the TA).

Are you a PhD or MSc student at the university?

Normally RA/TA positions come with a stipend (thats the hourly pay, at $X/hr for a max of 20hrs) plus a tuition waiver. Normally RAs come in two types, 50% and 25%, where 50% means you will work 20hrs/week (work week is 40hrs, hence the 50% number i think), and 25% RA requires you to work 10hrs/week. 50% RA covers full tuition while the 25% version covers half the tuition in the normal case.

I used to work in a lab during my MSc doing a 50% RA and that covered my tuition and also gave a stipend which was more than enough to live with, i used to save 50% of the stipend. I am not sure what the current hourly rates are...these also change from one university to another.

Best,
Nayana

[sam]

Pls clarify how the process go. Like if u are in a lab, how your tuition and living expenses covered typically,
and typical amounts/rates currently they pay in US.( should I bargain or just accept what he's saying?)

Basically you can talk to your department office and clarify how the process, start/end and pay rates for your position (if your professor already notified this to the office). If the position is a TA, then things are same for all the TA's (same pay rate, no bargain at all ). If your position is a GA or RA, then this depends on the availability of the funds. If your professors already decided how much he is going to pay (normally this will be same for people in the same lab in the same position), based on may be a written grant?? You need to talk to him and see.

From my personal experience, I used to work in a different department GRA position before joining the lab. The previous place used to pay me around $1225 and I found the lab RA's are getting only $1125. (I found this info from the office administrative coordinator, they are the one who do the paper work). I talked to my supervisor and mentioned I used to get $1225 and he agreed to pay the extra amount from his personal grants

If the funds are from the department, then the pay rate is usually the same for all the RA's in the department. Otherwise there is a possibility that based on the bargain power, some may have different pay rates...........May be you can talk to other RA's in the lab and see how much they get paid before talking to your professor

[dayanj]

Hey Thank you guys for your reply. Just saw them
(btw, I didn't get email notifications for these replies, is there something wrong?)
this helps a lot
below is an answer I got from my friend here, and Now I know a lot about it.
I am just posting it for future reference of someone else!!

Here when you are talking to a professor about joining his group as a Ph.D student, it is supposed that the professor should fund you, meaning that he will cover all your tuition (including registration fee and non-resident fee) and pay you monthly salary. The salary is paid to you because you are a Graduate Student Researcher in this PI's lab.

So if the professor doesn't point out that he can't "fully fund" you, it means that he's gonna cover your fee and give you monthly salary. All you have to do then is to gently ask about what is your salary scale. Usually we are in Step I to IV, but you know, the more the better:)
Just remember to make sure that you understand each other well in terms of "full funding or not"
All Ph.D students should get full funding, so just feel free to talk with the professor about it.


this is me again
I found out currently there are GSR positions are graded 1 to 10.
Higher the grade more paid.
1st grade pay is 15.53/hr now.

DJ