How to Read a Funding Offer (Post 1): Decoding the Offer Letter. What's Actually in There ?

Over the past few years, I have noticed the same confusion everywhere, in offer letters, university handbooks I've had to dig through, and in conversations with colleagues. "I didn't understand what I was actually being offered until months into the program."

So consider this the conversation I wish someone had with me, to answer any incoming student who asks "wait, is this actually fully funded or not?"

The words that show up in every offer letter (and what they actually mean)

1. Stipend

This is the number, the amount of money that's meant to cover your living expenses: rent, food, the occasional plane ticket home. Think of it less like a scholarship and more like a modest paycheck for the "job" of being a student-researcher.

Stipends are taxable income, whether they come from an assistantship or a fellowship, most countries treat both as reportable, though how the tax is withheld differs. Assistantship stipends are typically processed like a regular paycheck with taxes withheld, while fellowship stipends often come with no automatic withholding at all, meaning you could owe a chunk at tax time if you don't set money aside yourself. e College Investor)

2. Tuition Waiver vs. Tuition Remission

These two terms get used almost interchangeably, but universities distinguish between them internally.

The clearest breakdown I found comes from the University of Central Florida's graduate funding guide: tuition remission is the umbrella term for the university covering your tuition costs, and it comes in two flavors; a waiver, where the charge simply doesn't appear on your bill, versus a payment, where your department actually pays the bursar on your behalf. Either way, the practical effect is usually the same for you: you're not paying that portion.

Tuition remission usually covers tuition only — not local fees. The University of Wisconsin–Madison's policy explicitly notes that segregated fees are not waived even when tuition is fully remitted. The University of Texas at Arlington's graduate FAQ goes further, listing exactly what tuition support does not cover: things like the international student service fee, parking, and course-specific fees for field trips or private instruction.

Lets' sit on that for a second, because this is genuinely where a lot of "wait, why do I still owe money" moments come from. "Fully funded" almost never means every single fee is zero. It usually means tuition and mandatory fees are covered, and even "mandatory" is a defined, narrower category than students assume.

3. Assistantships: RA, TA, and the fine print between them

An assistantship is, at its core, a part-time job. You're not just receiving money, you're expected to work, usually 10 to 20 hours a week, in exchange for your stipend and tuition coverage.

• Research Assistantship (RA): You work on research, typically tied directly to your advisor's grant-funded project.

• Teaching Assistantship (TA): You support a course; grading, holding office hours, sometimes leading discussions.

• Program/Project Assistantship (PA): Less research-specific, often administrative or program-support work.

Assistantships come with a service requirement — you're an employee, with duties. Fellowships, by contrast, provide the same kinds of benefits (stipend, health insurance, tuition support) but without a matching work obligation. Fellows aren't classified as university employees at all.

That distinction, employee vs. non-employee, isn't just semantic. It affects your tax forms, your eligibility for certain benefits, and sometimes even your visa work-authorization category if you're an international student.

4. Fellowships

A fellowship is merit-based money, often awarded competitively, meant to let you focus purely on research or coursework without a formal work obligation attached. It can come from your university's own funds, or from an outside body entirely like government agencies, foundations, or national scholarship programs.

A quiet but important thing worth flagging here: some university-wide fellowships still expect you to take on some teaching duties, especially in later years of a program, even though the "fellowship" label suggests otherwise. Always check what your specific fellowship requires as the name of the award doesn't guarantee what's attached to it.

5. Health insurance

This is the single most under-communicated part of a funding offer.

Most US universities require graduate students, especially those on assistantships, to carry health insurance, and many automatically enroll you in the university's plan. But "automatically enrolled" does not always mean "automatically free." The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign's policy, for instance, shows that even with a partial fee waiver, a graduate assistant might still be billed several hundred dollars a semester out of pocket for health coverage.

Some universities cover the premium at a fixed percentage rather than in full eg. the University of Nebraska–Lincoln's policy has the employing department covering 79% of the premium, with the student responsible for the remaining 21%. Others, like the University of Memphis, charge a one-time administrative enrollment fee on top of the "covered" premium.

None of this is hidden, it's published, on the university's own website, in policy documents. But it's rarely spelled out clearly in the offer letter itself, which usually just says something like "health insurance provided." Provided isn't always the same as fully paid for.

A quick glossary, since the vocabulary alone is half the battle

Term: What it actually means

Stipend: Living-expense payment, taxable, paid monthly or per semester

Tuition waiver: The tuition charge doesn't appear on your bill at all

Tuition remission: Umbrella term, university is covering the tuition cost, via waiver or direct payment

Mandatory fees: Fees the university deems required for all students. Is not always covered by tuition remission

RA / TA / PA: Research / Teaching / Program Assistantship, employment with defined duties

Fellowship: Merit-based funding, typically without a work obligation attached.

Note: policies above are examples from specific US universities to illustrate how funding structures actually work in practice. Your own institution's terms may differ. Always confirm against your university's own graduate school pages.

Next in this series Post 2: Guaranteed vs. Real, Reading the Fine Print

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