3.0
18 Jun 2015
Current employee, more than 1 year
Blacksburg, VA
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook
Pros
Virginia Tech is a great place to work as a graduate student, the campus is beautiful and Blacksburg is relatively affordable; my rent comes to about 30% of my net income, and food, groceries, etc. to about another 40%. Of course the quality of the job when working as a GRA/GTA is highly dependent on who you are working with.
Cons
The main issue I have is the student fees that are not covered by the assistantship. While on paper I make a pretty comfortable amount for a graduate student, in the neighborhood of $18,000 - $20,000 a year, student fees take about a $3,000 chunk out of that amount each year. There worryingly little transparency about these fees, especially considering that they continue to steadily increase.