Graduate school can pay, literally. Not only can it help you realize your professional aspirations, but graduate degrees can also increase your earning potential. Going back to school can seem intimidating for a lot of reasons, but don’t let your graduate program’s price tag be the one thing that deters you from accomplishing your educational, professional and financial goals. Find out how you can fund your education with graduate school grants, assistantships, fellowships and graduate school loans.

Pick a program that pays

Many graduate schools, especially PhD programs, pay or offer stipends to students for assisting in the classroom, in a lab or in the dormitories. Working for your university is not only an excellent way of funding your education, but it’s also an impressive resume builder you can take into the workforce, be it in academia or the private sector.

• Work as a teaching assistant. When you’re inquiring about your preferred graduate program, find out if you’re eligible to work as a teaching assistant. Many teaching assistants earn free or discounted tuition, and/or a stipend. Large universities may even offer additional benefits like health insurance and retirement funds.
• Get paid to conduct research. Like teaching assistantships, research assistants usually work part-time and are awarded tuition and living assistance as compensation. Remember both research and teaching assistants are only awarded to students with a high academic performance and a good relationship with faculty.
• Live for free as a resident assistant. If you cannot obtain a research or teaching assistantship, consider becoming a resident assistant (RA). RAs don’t typically get tuition reimbursed, but are usually awarded free or steeply discounted university housing instead.

Contact your graduate program to see what kinds of graduate assistantships and employment opportunities are available to you.

Win grants, scholarships and fellowships for graduate school

Fellowships, scholarships and grants are awarded by university programs, graduate departments and outside institutions based on academic achievement.

• Earn graduate school scholarships and fellowships. Before you apply to graduate programs, contact their admission offices and ask them what scholarships and/or fellowships they offer and what it takes to win them.
• Apply for graduate school grants. Does your graduate program involve research? If so, you may be able to apply for non-profit and government-funded grants. Although many universities may offer their own grants, you can get additional funding from outside sources. This is a great option for those pursuing degrees in science, engineering, math, and education.
• Look into award money from other sources. Don’t just limit yourself to university-funded scholarships. Also apply for scholarships awarded by professional organizations, non-profits, government institutions, and groups that support specific ethnic groups, sexual orientations and genders.

Find out if your employer provides tuition reimbursement

If you’re seeking a degree to further your career in your current occupation, consider seeing if your current employer can help foot the bill. The Society for Human Resource Management recently conducted a survey showing that 58 percent of 550 employers offered some form of financial assistance for employees to pursue a post-graduate degree. Of course, most companies require that your coursework is relevant to your job. So, if you’re in marketing, you may be able to get funding for an M.B.A., but not a PhD in history.

Fill out a FAFSA & apply for student loans

If it turns out you don’t have access to tuition reimbursement benefits, paid graduate assistantships or fellowships, make sure you fill out a Financial Aid (FAFSA) form when you apply to your graduate program. You may be surprised how much federal financial assistance you might qualify for, especially if you’re in need. Then, once you’ve discovered how much you can receive in federal student loans, apply for student loans  through a private lender. Private graduate school loans are often an ideal option for students looking for an affordable way to cover the costs of higher education.                 

Sponsored content was created and provided by RBS Citizens Financial Group.

There are many a resource on travel hacking in the US, and it seems like every American has caught on to this awesome phenomenon.

I mean, who doesn’t want to travel for free with credit card rewards?

With my upcoming honeymoon, I thought I would do a case study to determine whether Canadians can do the same: a bit of an experiment on Canadian travel hacking.

Turns out, Canadian travel hacking is possible (though it does take a little longer than in the US).

Here’s how I booked my honeymoon for (almost) free – excluding, of course, our food and attraction spending when we actually go.

Credit Card #1: Air Miles

My first step to hacking my way to a free honeymoon was to open an American Express® AIR MILES®* Platinum Credit Card. This card gives you 1,250 sign-up bonus points (if you use my referral code. It’s only 1,000 points if you sign up elsewhere) when you spend $500 within the first three months – which is easy to do.

I then referred my fiance, who signed up and also got 1,250 sign-up bonus points.

Because I referred the card to him, I earned a bonus 500 air miles.

Total miles: 3,000. 

The card comes with a $65 annual fee, but the first year it is waived. We’ll both be closing the cards down before the fee is charged in 2015, unless we’re able to negotiate either a lower fee or the fee to be waived.

Credit Card #2: Membership Rewards Points

After we opened the first credit card, it became apparent that we weren’t getting a free trip after having opened only one credit card. We did some research and decided that our next card would be the American Express^® Gold Rewards Card.

This card also has an annual fee, which is waived for the first year. We’ll take the same approach for this card. When you sign up, you get a referral bonus of 25,000 points. I signed up, and got the 25,000 points. I referred my fiance with my referral code, who also got 25,000 points. I received an extra 10,000 points for referring him.

Total points: 60,000

This is actually a pretty good card; you earn 1 point for 1 dollar, so if you wanted to fly farther than 60,000 points would allow you to, you can just spend like you regularly would on the card and it would boost you up pretty quickly.

You can check out how many points you need for each destination here.

Points Allocation

You could easily go on a trip for two with just these two cards, within Canada or Continental USA. I wish I had known this before I went to NYC in 2012, and New Orleans in 2013 and spent thousands of dollars.

In any case, the way I would allocate the points is as follows:

• Use your American Express® Gold Rewards Card points on flights
• Use the Air Miles from the American Express® AIR MILES®* Platinum Credit Card on hotels and car rentals

Caveats

Canadian travel hacking is obviously very possible, but as I pointed out at the beginning of the post, it’s going to take longer to be able to go on your trip, if you want to go anywhere outside of Canada/continental USA.

You can definitely go on at least one trip per year, even with moderate points accumulation by every day spending being charged to your credit card. You won’t be going to Asia  and Europe for months at a time for free, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth it!

Also note that the amount of both Air Miles and Aeroplan points that the trip will “cost” you will depend on the time of the year and the “star” value of the hotel you are wanting to stay at.

While we could have travel hacked our way to Bali in the fall for free, we decided to book with AirBNB for our accommodation since it cost less than $23/night. That would have been a waste of points.

I’m going to have another post shortly about our trip to Asia and how we drastically reduced the cost through Canadian credit cards.

Stay tuned!