Attending graduate school full-time is an expensive proposition. Many writers seek their degrees at out-of-state institutions and pay much higher tuition costs as a result. In-state tuition at The University of Iowa Writers' Workshop is $3,625 per semester for the 2010-2011 academic year; equivalent out-of-state tuition is $10,835. Like many programs, Iowa offers assistantships, including tuition reduction to in-state rates, for students willing to teach undergraduate courses or perform other duties on campus. These assistantships pay $8,287.50 to $17,640 per year, depending upon the extent of teaching or other responsibilities. Some Iowa workshop students receive non-teaching stipends of $12,000 to $18,500 per year. These forms of assistance fall short of covering tuition and living costs without other sources of funds. Reliance on student loans leaves program graduates with substantial debt to repay after completing their degrees. Ideally, a student should receive financial support from her graduate program, but not all students will receive full funding.
Earning a graduate degree as a full-time resident student requires a substantial time commitment. Many students must leave their jobs, pack up their household goods and hit the highway for two or more years in an unfamiliar city. While low-residency degree programs minimize the amount of time their students must commit to full-time attendance on campus, even these shorter time requirements can disrupt employment. The Goddard College low-residency program costs $7,724 in tuition per semester in 2010-2011 and requires eight days on campus at the beginning of each of four semesters to complete the degree. In exchange for the opportunity to meet most degree requirements from off campus, low-residency programs demand the discipline to work diligently without week-to-week in-class deadlines.
Not all great writers are great writing teachers. Conversely, some of the best instructors aren't the biggest names in the writing world. Selecting a graduate program on the basis of its instructors' fame may yield disappointment if those luminaries prove ineffective at guiding students' learning. Faculty members also move from program to program, some as guest lecturers, and others go on leave for a year, potentially leaving a student without access to a professor who attracted the student to a specific program in the first place.
Neither admission to nor graduation from a prestigious writing program guarantees professional success as a writer. There's no automatic offer of representation from a literary agent for the novel or book of poems the writer crafted as her master's thesis. Likewise, the degree doesn't guarantee a teaching position. Translating successful graduate study into a place in the world of published writers requires still more hard work, even if the academic credential eases publication in literary journals.