Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc)
Pratt Institute
University of Southern California (USC)
Tulane University
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
Temple University
University of Oregon
Cranbrook Academy of Art
New York Institute of Technology (NYIT)
Kansas State University
Tuition waiver for Masters of architecture Programs
serious question here,
I was wondering if there would be a possibility to waver a tuition for certain masters programs, either through research assistance or teaching assistance. if not, what other ways are available to pay for the program without getting a bank loan.
Some programs offer RA and TA hugs based on academic merit. These usually consist of 20ish paid hours per month so only covers a small part of the expenses.
It depends on the school, the available funds they have for masters students, and how much they want you. Some schools just don't have the money for it. In my experience, TA/RA positions only pay 10-20 hours per week at slightly above minimum wage.
My school offered 10hr TA positions that got you a out of state waiver, half off in-state tuition, a monthly stipend, and healthcare. There were 20hr positions that had free tuition and double the stipend.
Check with departments outside of Arch. My program split TA stipends, giving only half to any individual. The library gave a full waiver along with a wage.
In my M.Arch program TA positions were generally worth a few thousand dollars (maybe 25% of tuition), while teaching fellowships were worth a lot more - 50% to 75% of tuition. TAs usually just assisted, while TFs taught a section of the course. But neither position was available to anyone in their first semester, so you couldn't base your decision to attend the school on whether you'd get a TA spot. Some first-years were selected as TAs in their 2nd semester, but usually only if the course required some particular skill, like past experience with software or welding or something and there was nobody else applying with that skill. Most people weren't TAs until their 2nd year. The process for being selected was fairly competitive - there were interviews and a scoring process.
Would teaching assistance in terms of documentation design, proposals, 3D visualisation etc be of any use to a degree program in return for a place, or would it get in the way before practice?
Documentation design and 3D visualization are both part of a typical M.Arch curriculum, so there would be regular faculty incorporating those things into their courses, and those faculty might or might not have TAs, depending on the school and its budget for TAs and even on whether or not that particular faculty member wanted a TA (some don't). It's not usually possible to propose to teach a subject in exchange for admission to a degree program, if that's what you mean. On the other hand, faculty at most schools are allowed to take free courses in that university, equal to the number of credits they're teaching that semester - but generally their options are limited to electives, and only ones that are not over-enrolled, so it's not usually possible to enroll in core courses and earn a degree that way.
Ok, so maybe those modules from faculty are possibly in need of a nudge in a practical direction?
Course development usually has to go through some official channels, and it gets reviewed by NAAB every 6 years, etc. It seems very unlikely to me that a prospective student could just come in and convince an architecture school that for some reason it needs his/her assistance in revamping curriculum, in exchange for admission/tuition. I suppose maybe if you were very well-known for these subjects and somewhat of a star-of-the-moment then someone might want you as adjunct or guest faculty or something - but that doesn't typically translate into admission/tuition.
Apologies I’m from the UK, what’s NAAB? Is it like RIBA/ARB?
National Architectural Accrediting Board, in the US. They accredit architecture schools, based on prescribed standards for curricula, facilities, faculty qualifications, number of architecture books in the library, etc. If the program is in good standing then they visit every 6 years to review the program and the work coming out of it. If there's a bad report it results in the program being put on probation, issued a document of things to fix, and then the next periods between accreditation reviews become shorter for several years - 2 to 5 years, depending on how bad things were. Successive bad visits can theoretically lead to the program losing its accreditation (in which case it would not satisfy the education requirement for licensing in many states).
Ahh like OFSTED in the UK, it failed my secondary school because it was the local comprehensive Tony Blair should have sent his children to. The design department was excellent it gave me a lot of experience and alumni also.
Echoing many other replies here, you shouldn't be selecting program on how they fund graduate students (unless it's a PhD program).
Ask those certain programs how they provide assistance.
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