Admissions Asking my prospective PhD supervisor about funding status

  • Thread starter Thread starter Am_Am
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Funding Phd
AI Thread Summary
A Ph.D. student has been accepted into a program with a professor who has assured funding for 3 to 4 years, including a salary. The student is confused about the relationship between this funding and a tuition scholarship, which typically includes an annual stipend for living expenses. It is advised that the student should feel comfortable asking the supervisor for clarification on the funding details, as transparency is important. Funding models can vary significantly between institutions. In some cases, students receive a combination of stipends and teaching assistantships, with professors potentially using independent grants to provide research assistantships instead. Generally, initial funding may come more from the university, with expectations of teaching, while later funding often shifts to the professor. Understanding the specifics of funding sources is crucial, especially since external funds may be limited in duration.
Am_Am
Messages
3
Reaction score
0
Hello,

A professor has accepted me in his group as a Ph.D. student based on an admission interview. At the end of the interview, he discussed with me how he would fund my Ph.D. He said that he has enough funding to provide me with a salary through 3 or 4 years of my Ph.D. program. He said also that I should apply formally to the university to get a tuitional scholarship. I thought at first that the university would offer me a tuition waiver and my supervisor will provide me with a salary to spend on my living expenses. I realized now that all the scholarships offered by the university come along with an annual stipend to spend on my living expenses. So, I'm confused now. Is the funding that I will receive from my supervisor would be independent of the stipend that I get from the scholarship or are they meant to be the same?

I want to inquire my supervisor about this, but I'm not sure if it is appropriate to ask him about funding status. Is it ok to ask my supervisor about this?

Thanks.
 
Physics news on Phys.org
Yes, it's fine to ask your supervisor questions about how funding works and in fact you should bring up any questions you have. There's no reason you should be in the dark on the details of how the department or your supervisor supports you financially.

Models of financial support will vary from school to school. In my (Canadian) experience, when a program accepts a student, the student is guaranteed a certain level of funding which comes through a combination of a stipend and teaching assistanceships. Often professors will have independent sources of funding (grants) and they can use those to "buy out" the TA portion of the financial support, giving the student a research assistanceship, rather than a TA. The student then doesn't have to TA (unless they want to--sometimes it's a valuable experience). Alternatively the students can receive independent funding through scholarships. These students often get a little more money than those supported by the department, but it works in a similar fashion, essentially replacing the mandatory TA.
 
Choppy said:
Yes, it's fine to ask your supervisor questions about how funding works and in fact you should bring up any questions you have. There's no reason you should be in the dark on the details of how the department or your supervisor supports you financially.

Models of financial support will vary from school to school. In my (Canadian) experience, when a program accepts a student, the student is guaranteed a certain level of funding which comes through a combination of a stipend and teaching assistanceships. Often professors will have independent sources of funding (grants) and they can use those to "buy out" the TA portion of the financial support, giving the student a research assistanceship, rather than a TA. The student then doesn't have to TA (unless they want to--sometimes it's a valuable experience). Alternatively the students can receive independent funding through scholarships. These students often get a little more money than those supported by the department, but it works in a similar fashion, essentially replacing the mandatory TA.
Thanks for the valuable comment. Ok. I will ask my supervisor for more details about how my PhD would be funded.
 
What @Choppy said comports with my experience at US Universities. For the first year or two more funding comes from the university and less (or none) from the prof. Often there is an expectation of TA with the university money. (Indeed some programs require teaching as degree requirement...I very much think it is useful to teach ). This also allows you some freedom to change your advisor should that become wise ! Also the TA usually is slightly more lucrative than just a fellowship and gets you into the campus mix.
After you pass qualifiers the money source usually shifts more to the prof. If the funds are external be aware that these are often awarded in two-year chunks so his/her guaranteed money horizon may in fact be quite short. (<2yr)
 
Hey, I am Andreas from Germany. I am currently 35 years old and I want to relearn math and physics. This is not one of these regular questions when it comes to this matter. So... I am very realistic about it. I know that there are severe contraints when it comes to selfstudy compared to a regular school and/or university (structure, peers, teachers, learning groups, tests, access to papers and so on) . I will never get a job in this field and I will never be taken serious by "real"...
Yesterday, 9/5/2025, when I was surfing, I found an article The Schwarzschild solution contains three problems, which can be easily solved - Journal of King Saud University - Science ABUNDANCE ESTIMATION IN AN ARID ENVIRONMENT https://jksus.org/the-schwarzschild-solution-contains-three-problems-which-can-be-easily-solved/ that has the derivation of a line element as a corrected version of the Schwarzschild solution to Einstein’s field equation. This article's date received is 2022-11-15...

Similar threads

Replies
9
Views
927
Replies
2
Views
1K
Replies
1
Views
72
Replies
12
Views
2K
Replies
2
Views
2K
Replies
2
Views
2K
Replies
23
Views
3K
Replies
8
Views
2K
Back
Top