When you go to Graduate school to get a PhD, I heard that you genrally take up job teaching undergraduates, which gets you your 5-7 years of school beyond your bachelors degree free. This was for Astronomy. Is this true in every Field? Med School? Law School? or are these schools different? How about Physics?
With the exception of law, the years needed to get a Ph.D. vary.
Law school is pretty standard: 3 years. That differs if you have to go to night school or have some other type of program.
Law school grants you a professional degree instead of an academic degree.
All the English doctoral programs I applied to are five-year programs – but, as Bob said, it depends on your field.
(And I only got accepted to a Master’s program [at U of Chicago], so I have to apply to them all again… :eek: )
Typically, the arrangements where the graduate student serves as a “Teaching Assistant” (which can involve simply grading papers, can involve leading sections/labs, can involve teaching the course) or “Research Assistant” (which involves some kind of work on research projects) happen in what might be called “academic” programs. Those can often (but not always) be identified as the ones that grant PhD’s. (This includes Astronomy and Physics from among the programs you listed.)
In “First Professional Degree” programs (Law School, Medical School, Dental School, Veterinary School, Theological Seminary, and some others - the “Teaching Assistant” position is almost non-existant. This could be because there is relatively little undergraduate coursework taught in these programs, so there is not as much need for a TA. It might just be tradition.
I suspect that there are some opportunities for RA positions at the FPD schools, but I bet these are highly competitive.
FPD programs usually tend to be a little shorter than PhD programs, and there is far less variation - PhD programs are notorious for having students who take 8, 10, 12 years or more to complete their degree, while others get out in 3-5.
Most people who complete the FPD programs have to take out pretty sizable loans to complete their education.
dorkbo’s on the money.
A coupla other points: not every PhD student gets a TA-ship or RA-ship. Not all schools or programs can guarantee funding for more than a few years. At my campus, in some programs it’s pretty much guaranteed that all grad students will have a pretty sweet position for 5 full years. In others, those positions are fewer and students compete for them. They might turn to loans or other positions to fund their studies (I am a case in point).
Also, not all teaching and research assistantships cover all of a student’s tuition. That really varies, too. Graduate students that have unionized have often used differences across campuses as a rallying point.
Cranky, may I ask where you go to school (and which campus)? 
Very true. Most, if not all, of the graduate students at York University went on strike this past winter to protest the contracts of various staff on campus (their own, and others, I believe). You might be able to find out more information at The Toronto Star if you’re curious.
Whoa, there really is such a thing as unionized grad students? We’ve been having some… issues with the College of Graduate Studies here, and have been wondering if such a thing is possible.
By the way, physics, and on assistantship for as long as I like, and then some (grad students are cheaper than faculty).
They do indeed exist, Chronos. Michigan has one (it’s called GEO). They’ve been having contract issues for the last few years, too. There was a strike in 1996, I think, and a one-day walkout last spring. (One of my professors said that they were just being petulant because most of them would never get any farther in their academic careers, but he’s a dick. [And he gave me a B! 
:p])
Now that’s interesting. It would have been nice to know that a few years ago when I was teaching freshman comp in Kalamazoo.
Oh, well.
At Western Michigan University, you get two years if you’re in the English curriculum. Personally, two years was more than enough to convince me that I’d rather take a stake in the forehead than teach for a living.
Finishing my Ph.D in Forestry as we speak (errr, write). I spent 3 years doing a M.S. (also in Forestry) and I’ll finish my Ph.D in 3 1/2. And over the course of 13 semesters I was unfunded only once and that was my very first semester. For ten of those remaining twelve semesters, I was fully funded as a TA. IMO it was a pretty good deal. I’ve received a first class graduate education at two of the best schools in the country for my degree interests and it ended up costing me next to nothing.
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Katisha’s talking about the University of Michigan, slortar, not the state in general.
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I believe the school Cranky is referring to is also UM-Ann Arbor.
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As far as I know, Chronos, GEO has been pretty effective at getting decent pay etc for TAs. I’m probably not the best judge, as I was an engineering grad (plenty of RA and TA positions, regarless of GEO action), but the most egregious abuses of grad students in other departments (see point 5 below) were curtailed.
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It’s pretty rare that grad students would get a formal guarantee of support over the course of their 5-or-so year career. Coincidentally, the ME department at UM does offer a 5-year guarantee of support to the top 30 or so incoming grad students, but that’s the only place I’ve ever heard of that. Normally, you’re supported year-to-year (so there is some risk of losing your salary), but, as Cranky points out, the well-funded departments can find support for everyone, so the risk of loss of funding in these places is low.
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I was told by my GEO rep that, before union representation, TAs in the Studio Art department were paid as low as a 5% stipend with no tuition waiver to teach a class (where they put in 30+ hours/week). As a comparison, RAs and most TAs in my department (ME) were paid a 50% stipend plus tuition waiver (for a nominal 20 hours/week). A 5% stipend works out to about $150 a month.
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Finally, to partially answer the OP: Speaking from my experience as an engineering grad student, there are typically three sources of funding: fellowships (scholarships, basically, which may or may not have strings attached), teaching assistantships, and research assistantships. In my department, all three contained a stipend (salary, if you will) and a tuition waiver. The size of the salary and the extent of the tuition waiver varies from department to department, and sometimes varies from one type of support to another. I was supported at one time or another through all three types of funding; in my case with full tuition waiver and 50% stipend (~$1500 per month). That’s probably about as generous as you’ll find. As a general rule of thumb, the more prestigious the department, the more money they have available, the easier it is for them to support grad students, and the better chance you have of landing assistantships to cover your expenses.
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(added after preview) As jharding points out, getting a good education for free plus a decent student salary in exchange for a nominal 20 hrs/wk of work is not a bad deal. However, remember that the university is getting the services of a degreed engineer (or forester, or physicist) for next to nothing, so this arrangement benefits them, too.
Astronomy grad here! In our department, for those who don’t have NSF fellowships, it’s usually 2-3 years as a TA, then you serve the rest of your time as an RA. TA money comes from the college, RA money comes from your advisor’s grant.
And, creepy coincidence, Epimetheus–I’m doing astrometry on you today . . . or, well, on your namesake.
Yep, no argument from me on this. In fact, I often felt a little uneasy knowing that the classes I was teaching (six different classes over six years) had all previously been taught by tenured faculty and the students in my classes were paying the same $$ regardless of the instructor.
I’ll also add one more thing in reference to the OP. Every state has at least one school that offers at least an M.S. in Forestry. Also, my field is generally well-funded. As a result, I had my pick of where I wanted to go to school.
So, Epimetheus, if you’re thinking about grad school. My advice would be to research different schools as to their reputations for whatever discipline you’re interested in and then inquire about funding opportunities (among many other things of course).