The Student Room Group

Funding for US postgrad work

I basically have no money and my parents do not make a lot of money (probably about 25K between them p.a.) but I would really like to do further study, and I have had my heart set on going to the US for the past 3 years - is this totally unrealistic?

I am hoping to get a first / high 2.i in History & Celtic from Oxford Universty and I think I could get some very good references based on the termly reports from my tutors. Will I be able to get grants to study Celtic literature because I'm an able candidate, or do I need $$$ to study?
WelshPixie
I basically have no money and my parents do not make a lot of money (probably about 25K between them p.a.) but I would really like to do further study, and I have had my heart set on going to the US for the past 3 years - is this totally unrealistic?

I am hoping to get a first / high 2.i in History & Celtic from Oxford Universty and I think I could get some very good references based on the termly reports from my tutors. Will I be able to get grants to study Celtic literature because I'm an able candidate, or do I need $$$ to study?


It's rare to get a significant amount of money granted for graduate studies--especially in liberal arts work, because they generally have less funding. Most grad students have a job related to their studies, and they just accumulate debt and plan on paying it off when they have a real job. I would suggest researching the funding for the Celtic studies programs at the universities that you are looking at.
Reply 2
In addition to grants, you should look into what kind of teaching positions might be open to grad students in the programs that you are interested in. Find out how many students in your program who want teaching jobs are able to get them and what benefits there are for these positions in addition to the salaries. For example, I know that at UC Berkeley, in addition to salaries for teaching positions, grad students who teach also don't have to pay some or all of their tuition.
WelshPixie
I basically have no money and my parents do not make a lot of money (probably about 25K between them p.a.) but I would really like to do further study, and I have had my heart set on going to the US for the past 3 years - is this totally unrealistic?

I am hoping to get a first / high 2.i in History & Celtic from Oxford Universty and I think I could get some very good references based on the termly reports from my tutors. Will I be able to get grants to study Celtic literature because I'm an able candidate, or do I need $$$ to study?


If you want to do Ph.D. work, you should be able to find a program that will fund the whole of your study if you are a strong candidate. Usually you will be required to do some teaching assistant stuff or be a research assistant, but I've heard that it's definitely NOT impossible to have you entire degree funded through university scholarship. If you just want a Masters, that could be a little harder to find, so think about the Ph.D. if you're up for it.