By Song Peijing
Special of the Tsinghua News Center
Since the 2007-08 academic year, Tsinghua has provided more assistant positions for its graduate students. The positions cover more than 90 percent of all graduate students.
The graduate assistant system includes teaching assistants (TAs), research assistants (RAs), and administrative assistants (AAs). It was firstly introduced at Tsinghua in 1990, mainly for Ph.D. candidates. Under the new policy introduced this academic year, any master or Ph.D. candidate, who gains a position as an assistant can waive tuition fees and receives monthly allowances. Others can apply for tuition waivers or reductions in fees.
TA and AA positions are allocated by the university or departments and funded by the university, while RA places are mainly set up and funded by the individual research institute and department. A special fund also finances additional RA positions in the social sciences and humanities as well as other pure sciences.
Besides more assistant positions, Tsinghua provides various scholarships for both national and international students. In the 2006-07 academic year, more than RMB 12 million in scholarships was offered.
