Engineering and Public Policy

Funding

Being admitted to an excellent, but expensive graduate school, such as Carnegie Mellon University, is generally only the first prerequisite for a student to enroll and attend. Most students require and receive some financial support to cover some or all of their tuition, and many receive a stipend for their living expenses.

• When you have been "admitted with aid pending," we haven't determined as yet whether and how much financial support we can provide you. We will contact you later in the process with an update.
• If you have been "admitted without aid," you will be responsible for paying your own tuition (currently $42,000 for the academic year 2015/2016, $21,000 per semester) and covering your own living expenses (average for a single person in Pittsburgh, approximately $28,540 per year, for a couple with one child, the cost would be approximately an additional $15,000 per year). If you have applied indicating that you have secured outside funding already, e.g., from your company or home country, then we may admit you "without aid" from the University, but with the recognition that your government, company, etc., will cover your tuition (and in some cases stipend, though your government or company may elect to pay your stipend to you directly, rather than through the University). If you are an international student, we will require you to provide documentation to prove that you have the financial resources to cover your tuition and living expenses prior to enrollment. If we admit you without aid, please don't come expecting to get aid after a semester or two. Come only if you can organize sufficient resources.
• If you are "admitted with full tuition and stipend support," we will pay your tuition and pay you a monthly stipend. Stipends for the 2015-2016 academic year are $2,250 per month. Before you compare our stipend with offers you receive from other programs, consider the living expenses. Ours are relatively low in Pittsburgh. Also, it's a stipend to cover living expenses, not a salary indicative of your intellectual, economic, or spiritual worth. You're worth more, but that's not the purpose. If you decide to attend CMU or anywhere else primarily because of the amount of the stipend, you are probably not using the best judging criteria.
• If you are "admitted with tuition support only," we will pay your tuition, but you will not receive a stipend. International applicants in this case are required to provide documentation that they can cover their own living expenses prior to enrollment. In certain cases, we may offer "partial tuition support," for example, covering one half or two thirds of your tuition. You are then responsible for the rest. We may do this for students who we believe are good enough to succeed in our program, but for whom there are currently no available sources of research support. In this case, departmental funds (rather than outside research funds) are used to support the student. We usually expect such students to work actively after they arrive with faculty writing proposals for fellowships and research grants to cover their tuition, and hopefully provide stipend as well, for future years.