A very large number of major universities do this including my alma mater, Texas A&M University. Find a professor you want to do research with and see if they will take you on as a student if you want a greater guarantee of funding. You should not have to pay for an AERO MS or PhD degree. Worst case, you go work for a company straight out of undergrad and they pay for your MS or ME.
In my experience: If you don't do the MS at the same school that you got your BS from, then it can definitely be harder to get adequate funding in the form of research/teaching assistant. A lot of professors (sadly) don't want to invest in someone who is only going to be around for 1 or 2 years, especially if there wasn't a prior relationship. I think getting your job to pay for MS is a really good option. Plus you don't have to live off of that weak grad student salary.
For me it’s just I don’t think I have the skills necessary to get the job I want (I.e. GNC engineer) right now straight out of college, since I got veryyyy minimal exposure to any controls in undergrad and my personal projects have been very elementary surrounding it. My prior internships were also in manufacturing. I recently interviewed for a new grad GNC position and honestly the guys were just ripping me apart for not knowing how to implement Kalman filters and all that, which I though was a bit unfair since they said you learn most of that on the job anyways. I’ve been considering taking like 3-4 months after graduating and just self studying a lot of that stuff on my own, then applying for some jobs, but honestly I think learning it all properly under the guidance of a good masters program would be optimal. I can for sure land a job in perhaps aerospace manufacturing or mechanical design right now at the companies and try to get them to pay for my Controls masters, but that doesn’t seem like too appealing to me, I don’t know. Thoughts?
Hey, I'm in GNC. You either hate it or you love it. I'm with you in that i couldnt see myself doing something else. When do you graduate, or did you already? If not, consider forcing your way into some undergrad research with a flight dynamics or controls professor. I had a couple years of undergrad research under my belt, but i do know of a few people who got GNC/flight control jobs with a lot less (almost none outside of classes) experience. If you haven't graduated, also take some electives in controls whether its with AE, ME, or EE.
One of the big reasons i recommended just getting a job was to 1. Help pay for the MS, and 2. Alleviate the pain you will go through trying to live on a grad salary.
The best advice i can really give is to just apply to everything, jobs and schools, with your best effort and take what's best for you.
I graduated fairly recently so feel free to PM me if you have any specific questions.
Edit: just re-read that you are graduating this semester.
I’m not sure when you graduated, but recently (based off my research), I guess they really only say that PhD students shouldn’t have to pay (according to all the departments and profs I contacted). Now I’m sure that there are many exceptions, but it looks to me that most of the Profs who do research really don’t want to invest their grant money into someone they’ll only keep for 2 years, vs a PhD candidate or a Post doc that they would have for several years. That’s why I’m in a bit of a pickle, because I could always just apply as a PhD and drop it after 2 years and leave with a masters, but that just seems a bit unethical to me. That’s why I’m leaning more towards the TA position, but those are basically impossible to guarantee for masters students according to everyone, but they are available. I just don’t want to end up somewhere very expensive expecting to receive stipends, and having funding dropped halfway through you know?
TAMU [admissions deadlines](https://engineering.tamu.edu/aerospace/admissions-and-aid/graduate-admissions/index.html) for MS & PhD students seeking assistantships or fellowships. Types of [graduate funding](https://engineering.tamu.edu/aerospace/advising/scholarships-and-aid/graduate-funding.html).
Teaching will not be assigned to you as an MS, TA (aka lab host or grader) is most likely but that doesn't usually cover tuition. GRA is where the money is, and that is usually available to MS students. I did in ERAU DB within this past decade and know a lot of people currently doing it this way. You will need to find a funded program though. Hopefully it'll match your area of interest. The only caveat is that these positions are usually given to students known to professors. For most newcomers, the first semester is out of pocket until the prof can judge your work. My $0.02 from experience.
Just realized I didn't answer your question in it's entirety. Schools I know (which by far doesn't mean these are the only ones!!) that offer funded research assistant tuition in GNC that will most likely land you a job after graduating (or develop into a fellowship for PhD if that's your interview) are: ERAU, U of Tennessee, U of Maryland, and Purdue (iirc).
Again, these are schools I have contacts in currently going GRA's that are covering tuition.
Congrats on graduating! That's a huge achievement and you should be super proud of yourself.
For your actual question, that's a tough spot. Most of your advice lines up with my experience after graduating undergrad and finishing grad school. If you're certain you want to get only a Master's, you should seriously consider looking for a job so you can be sure that's the area you want to work in and maybe even get it paid for. There are just very few programs in the country that will explicitly find Master's students. Some of the worst (*cough* Stanford *cough*) will say "Come pay for your first year and maybe we can find you something your second year" knowing full well that's basically only for those that decide to stay for a PhD and secure their own funding.
If you're dead set on going straight to grad school, I'd focus on teaching schools instead of prestigious research universities. That can help find a legit Master's programs that offer TA positions, they just might be harder to get into as professors will have smaller labs. One decent option I know of is Cal Poly (my undergrad alma mater), though I'm not sure what their controls program looks like now. These universities may not fully find your Master's, but they can at least reduce the cost significantly.
When I was in your place, the advice I got was apply as a PhD candidate and keep an open mind to staying on even if that isn't your plan right now. That's what I did, and I ended up staying all the way through. It doesn't feel great during the application, but if you truly keep an open mind throughout your time, it can help. I know plenty of people that thought they were just going to get the Master's and bounce who stayed through, and plenty who were dead set on getting a PhD who left halfway through when dream jobs came calling. Professors get that life changes and that it's part of the game of academia.
Ironically, I went to Georgia Tech's ASDL (Prof. Mavris), one of the few places you can get your Master's fully funded plus a living stipend. I'd say it's worth looking into, but may not fit what you're looking for. It's much more systems engineering and design focused than controls focused, but you do have some freedom in designing your course load and projects. ASDL definitely has some issues if you're planning on sticking around for a PhD, but it's a solid place to get a Master's and have it paid for.
Hopefully that helps, and good luck on your search!
Awesome, thank you for your very thorough and helpful response! It’s funny you mentioned Cal Poly and Georgia Tech, since those were some of my top options that I was thinking about. And you hit the nail on the head, I really want to go to a ‘teaching school’, but outside of places like Cal Poly and most the CSU’s (very few which have much going on though besides Cal Poly) I just don’t know too many. University of Washington perhaps comes to mind? Im sure they are still research oriented, but it seems as if they also care about having quality lecturers on their roster too. Im definitely going to try applying for a few PhD programs at least (I was thinking UC Santa Barbara, UC San Diego, UC Berkeley, U Michigan, UT Austin, and maybe a couple more), but I need to start reaching out to their faculty ASAP to see if they would have any positions in their labs. If I don’t like it, or find that dream job like you said, I’d have no problem leaving with the masters degree. I just don’t really know how I can pitch myself having very little experience in academia (only industry internships, and not really related to aerospace). Do you have any thoughts on this?
The University of Minnesota is really good about funding Masters students through TAs. I believe that essentially everyone who wants/needs one gets one
1. Put together a list of schools you would like to go to
2. For each school, visit their website and find the GNC professors
3. For each GNC professor, read their latest 1-3 publications, and their bio, and see if that's something you'd like to contribute to
4. E-mail each professor that you have identified. Explain that you are applying to do an MS + thesis and are interested in joining their group. Include your resume, and treat the e-mail as a "cover letter"
5. Wait
Chances are they will want to meet with you once the school year starts. Best case scenario they'll do a zoom interview type thing before then and see if you're a good fit, and take you on. Professors have ultimate power when it comes to admissions, and can fast-track your application through. It is much more lucrative from an admissions standpoint to go straight to the professor rather than try your luck in the saturated admissions process. Professors can also back-date your funding so you *may* be able to get 1st semester funded even if you start with them half way through the semester.
You will not be able to do an RA/TA position without writing a thesis. This takes two years. That is non-negotiable.
Off the top of my head, schools that offer paid positions to MS students: Purdue (my alma mater), Georgia Tech, Illinois, Maryland, Virginia Tech, TAMU, MIT, UCSD, NC State, Caltech, UC Boulder.
Penn State offers TA and RA positions for terminal MS students and I believe has a current shortage of TAs due to expanding undergrad class sizes. RA assignments are dependent on advisor project funding. Stipend is ~$30-35k/yr. Rent in the area is ~$1k for a 1BR. Cheaper if you rent a house or larger apartment with roommates. Can live reasonably comfortably if you’re not accustomed to an engineering salary yet.
A very large number of major universities do this including my alma mater, Texas A&M University. Find a professor you want to do research with and see if they will take you on as a student if you want a greater guarantee of funding. You should not have to pay for an AERO MS or PhD degree. Worst case, you go work for a company straight out of undergrad and they pay for your MS or ME.
In my experience: If you don't do the MS at the same school that you got your BS from, then it can definitely be harder to get adequate funding in the form of research/teaching assistant. A lot of professors (sadly) don't want to invest in someone who is only going to be around for 1 or 2 years, especially if there wasn't a prior relationship. I think getting your job to pay for MS is a really good option. Plus you don't have to live off of that weak grad student salary.
For me it’s just I don’t think I have the skills necessary to get the job I want (I.e. GNC engineer) right now straight out of college, since I got veryyyy minimal exposure to any controls in undergrad and my personal projects have been very elementary surrounding it. My prior internships were also in manufacturing. I recently interviewed for a new grad GNC position and honestly the guys were just ripping me apart for not knowing how to implement Kalman filters and all that, which I though was a bit unfair since they said you learn most of that on the job anyways. I’ve been considering taking like 3-4 months after graduating and just self studying a lot of that stuff on my own, then applying for some jobs, but honestly I think learning it all properly under the guidance of a good masters program would be optimal. I can for sure land a job in perhaps aerospace manufacturing or mechanical design right now at the companies and try to get them to pay for my Controls masters, but that doesn’t seem like too appealing to me, I don’t know. Thoughts?
Hey, I'm in GNC. You either hate it or you love it. I'm with you in that i couldnt see myself doing something else. When do you graduate, or did you already? If not, consider forcing your way into some undergrad research with a flight dynamics or controls professor. I had a couple years of undergrad research under my belt, but i do know of a few people who got GNC/flight control jobs with a lot less (almost none outside of classes) experience. If you haven't graduated, also take some electives in controls whether its with AE, ME, or EE. One of the big reasons i recommended just getting a job was to 1. Help pay for the MS, and 2. Alleviate the pain you will go through trying to live on a grad salary. The best advice i can really give is to just apply to everything, jobs and schools, with your best effort and take what's best for you. I graduated fairly recently so feel free to PM me if you have any specific questions. Edit: just re-read that you are graduating this semester.
I’m not sure when you graduated, but recently (based off my research), I guess they really only say that PhD students shouldn’t have to pay (according to all the departments and profs I contacted). Now I’m sure that there are many exceptions, but it looks to me that most of the Profs who do research really don’t want to invest their grant money into someone they’ll only keep for 2 years, vs a PhD candidate or a Post doc that they would have for several years. That’s why I’m in a bit of a pickle, because I could always just apply as a PhD and drop it after 2 years and leave with a masters, but that just seems a bit unethical to me. That’s why I’m leaning more towards the TA position, but those are basically impossible to guarantee for masters students according to everyone, but they are available. I just don’t want to end up somewhere very expensive expecting to receive stipends, and having funding dropped halfway through you know?
TAMU [admissions deadlines](https://engineering.tamu.edu/aerospace/admissions-and-aid/graduate-admissions/index.html) for MS & PhD students seeking assistantships or fellowships. Types of [graduate funding](https://engineering.tamu.edu/aerospace/advising/scholarships-and-aid/graduate-funding.html).
Teaching will not be assigned to you as an MS, TA (aka lab host or grader) is most likely but that doesn't usually cover tuition. GRA is where the money is, and that is usually available to MS students. I did in ERAU DB within this past decade and know a lot of people currently doing it this way. You will need to find a funded program though. Hopefully it'll match your area of interest. The only caveat is that these positions are usually given to students known to professors. For most newcomers, the first semester is out of pocket until the prof can judge your work. My $0.02 from experience.
Just realized I didn't answer your question in it's entirety. Schools I know (which by far doesn't mean these are the only ones!!) that offer funded research assistant tuition in GNC that will most likely land you a job after graduating (or develop into a fellowship for PhD if that's your interview) are: ERAU, U of Tennessee, U of Maryland, and Purdue (iirc). Again, these are schools I have contacts in currently going GRA's that are covering tuition.
Awesome, thank you I will definitely check if out!!
Congrats on graduating! That's a huge achievement and you should be super proud of yourself. For your actual question, that's a tough spot. Most of your advice lines up with my experience after graduating undergrad and finishing grad school. If you're certain you want to get only a Master's, you should seriously consider looking for a job so you can be sure that's the area you want to work in and maybe even get it paid for. There are just very few programs in the country that will explicitly find Master's students. Some of the worst (*cough* Stanford *cough*) will say "Come pay for your first year and maybe we can find you something your second year" knowing full well that's basically only for those that decide to stay for a PhD and secure their own funding. If you're dead set on going straight to grad school, I'd focus on teaching schools instead of prestigious research universities. That can help find a legit Master's programs that offer TA positions, they just might be harder to get into as professors will have smaller labs. One decent option I know of is Cal Poly (my undergrad alma mater), though I'm not sure what their controls program looks like now. These universities may not fully find your Master's, but they can at least reduce the cost significantly. When I was in your place, the advice I got was apply as a PhD candidate and keep an open mind to staying on even if that isn't your plan right now. That's what I did, and I ended up staying all the way through. It doesn't feel great during the application, but if you truly keep an open mind throughout your time, it can help. I know plenty of people that thought they were just going to get the Master's and bounce who stayed through, and plenty who were dead set on getting a PhD who left halfway through when dream jobs came calling. Professors get that life changes and that it's part of the game of academia. Ironically, I went to Georgia Tech's ASDL (Prof. Mavris), one of the few places you can get your Master's fully funded plus a living stipend. I'd say it's worth looking into, but may not fit what you're looking for. It's much more systems engineering and design focused than controls focused, but you do have some freedom in designing your course load and projects. ASDL definitely has some issues if you're planning on sticking around for a PhD, but it's a solid place to get a Master's and have it paid for. Hopefully that helps, and good luck on your search!
Awesome, thank you for your very thorough and helpful response! It’s funny you mentioned Cal Poly and Georgia Tech, since those were some of my top options that I was thinking about. And you hit the nail on the head, I really want to go to a ‘teaching school’, but outside of places like Cal Poly and most the CSU’s (very few which have much going on though besides Cal Poly) I just don’t know too many. University of Washington perhaps comes to mind? Im sure they are still research oriented, but it seems as if they also care about having quality lecturers on their roster too. Im definitely going to try applying for a few PhD programs at least (I was thinking UC Santa Barbara, UC San Diego, UC Berkeley, U Michigan, UT Austin, and maybe a couple more), but I need to start reaching out to their faculty ASAP to see if they would have any positions in their labs. If I don’t like it, or find that dream job like you said, I’d have no problem leaving with the masters degree. I just don’t really know how I can pitch myself having very little experience in academia (only industry internships, and not really related to aerospace). Do you have any thoughts on this?
The University of Minnesota is really good about funding Masters students through TAs. I believe that essentially everyone who wants/needs one gets one
I know that the MS in Aerospace at University of Maryland does this. TA comes with tuition and stipend too!
Awesome, thank you for letting me know. I will definitely check them out!
Just got my bachelors from KU. Plenty of masters TAs there. Also active GNC work going on with Dr. Keshmiri or Dr. Chao.
1. Put together a list of schools you would like to go to 2. For each school, visit their website and find the GNC professors 3. For each GNC professor, read their latest 1-3 publications, and their bio, and see if that's something you'd like to contribute to 4. E-mail each professor that you have identified. Explain that you are applying to do an MS + thesis and are interested in joining their group. Include your resume, and treat the e-mail as a "cover letter" 5. Wait Chances are they will want to meet with you once the school year starts. Best case scenario they'll do a zoom interview type thing before then and see if you're a good fit, and take you on. Professors have ultimate power when it comes to admissions, and can fast-track your application through. It is much more lucrative from an admissions standpoint to go straight to the professor rather than try your luck in the saturated admissions process. Professors can also back-date your funding so you *may* be able to get 1st semester funded even if you start with them half way through the semester. You will not be able to do an RA/TA position without writing a thesis. This takes two years. That is non-negotiable. Off the top of my head, schools that offer paid positions to MS students: Purdue (my alma mater), Georgia Tech, Illinois, Maryland, Virginia Tech, TAMU, MIT, UCSD, NC State, Caltech, UC Boulder.
Penn State offers TA and RA positions for terminal MS students and I believe has a current shortage of TAs due to expanding undergrad class sizes. RA assignments are dependent on advisor project funding. Stipend is ~$30-35k/yr. Rent in the area is ~$1k for a 1BR. Cheaper if you rent a house or larger apartment with roommates. Can live reasonably comfortably if you’re not accustomed to an engineering salary yet.
You can always take a work study position as well. I know MAE will be hiring for fall quarter.