MS incoming student: How to convince my department to give me financial support? I am an international student. I have received a MS admit (Fall 2021) from X University (USA) in Y department (STEM). My initial application to this university was for PhD, but I got a reject for PhD and they offered MS (thesis) instead.
The fees of X University are very costly for me. X University also has a no TA/RA policy for MS students.
The Graduate School of the university told me that there might be some small financial support possible from the department. Thus, I emailed the department explaining my situation. Their initial response was negative, but the Director of Master's program in my department has agreed to a brief call.
I need some guidance on how to convince the department/Director of Master's program to provide me with some financial support, any amount will help.
It's almost certainly not possible. The grad school sent you to the department because funding isn't the grad school's job. They don't really know if the department has funds or not. The department's initial response was negative probably because they don't have funds for you. I can only guess at why they've agreed to take a call anyways, but it's probably just because you've been persistent and either a) they are having a hard time saying simply &quot;no&quot;, because it's culturally uncomfortable to say, or b) they think you'll take the &quot;no&quot; answer better over a call or stop bothering them.
There are no secret words; there aren't typically funds for MS students and your rejection for PhD was likely because they've offered the available funding slots to candidates they liked better for the PhD program; you're left as someone they maybe would be okay taking as a PhD student given unlimited funds, but they don't have unlimited funds, so they've offered the MS instead.
A more cynical viewpoint is that they don't really want you at all, but are willing to take any student who is willing to pay the high undiscounted fees that are typically charged to international students.
If you'd like to be a PhD student in the US, you are probably better off applying as a PhD student at other universities.