I haven't received the support promised in my funding letter. What should I do?

Question

It has been 4 months that I have started my master's degree in North America. I got my funding letter from my supervisor when I was in my home country, in my letter it was written that I will be a fully funded student. Now I am here and he does not pay that amount money. even for my first semester, I paid all of my expenses and tuition fee from my pocket. I finished those amount of money that I brought from my home country. now my supervisor does not pay properly. Life became difficult for me, even the university restricted my access to add and drop due to the hold. I am a good student who cares about studying, I hate thinking about money and tuition fee. I am not the guy who can study and do research like this. My prof pays other classmates more than me. This situation really disappoints me and overwhelmingly hard for me. Several times my parents wanted to send money but I did not let them. (transferring money is difficult from my home country.) I feel like crying these days and I could not stop it. Do you have any recommendation or sample letter? how can I make him understand?

+edited: I tried to talk my classmates about this issue. But when I am explaining this issue to them they think that there is something wrong with me and my classmates do not offer any collaboration with me such as publishing something or studying together. This payment issue affected my self-confidence completely.

Answer 1

Based on a conversation in the comments, so you have basically no reason to see this as anything but a mistake. You were never told you would be paid anything less than you were offered. You have not communicated to anyone that you are being paid less than you are supposed to be paid. Most likely no one knows you are not being paid correctly.

You have done a very silly thing by letting this go on so long. Go talk to your advisor face to face as if your advisor is a normal human being, let them know you think there is a mistake because have not been paid the amount you expected to be paid, and ask who you need to talk to in order to get this fixed or whether you have misunderstood something. If you cannot meet face to face, you can say the same thing in an email.

There is no need for this to be damaging to your relationship, there is no need for you to accuse anyone of mistreating or abusing you, there is no broken relationship already. It sounds like there is an administrative error that needs to be corrected. Administration in a university is complicated and involves people that don't know you or your advisor personally at all, they may have nothing in their records to show what you should be paid. The likelihood of mistakes increases dramatically if you are supposed to be paid from more than one source.

Only if your advisor refuses to correct the mistake and refuses to let you know who you need to talk to to correct the mistake should you assume any malice.

Answer 2

This is a really unfortunate situation to be in, I'm sorry to hear about your situation...

I would discuss this with your advisor and the administrators immediately. It could be that there is some HR issue/misunderstanding (either on their part or on yours). It is often the case that some salary is contingent on you completing some initial courseload, taking up teaching duties etc., it could be that the gross amount stated in the letter does not include taxes/tuition fees. If this was not properly explained to you it is a bit odd, to say the least, but it never hurts to make sure that you are not misreading something.

There are ways of approaching this topic diplomatically and without antagonizing your advisor/HR (assuming that there is not ill intent on their part). Approach them, with the hardcopy of the letter in hand, and your latest payslip. Politely ask whether there has been a misunderstanding: my letter says I am to be paid X but I was in fact paid Y; is there a reason for this discrepancy?

If you are still 100% sure that someone acted with ill intent/is negligent and won't correct their mistake, I would contact someone: if your university has an international student union (many North American universities do), or better yet one that is affiliated with your nationality, this is a good place to start. If your university has an ombudsman (person whose job is to mediate between students and university), reach out to them.

If such bodies do not exist or are unresponsive, reach out to higher-ups in the university (head of department, dean for undergraduate studies etc.).

If that fails, contact a consulate/a lawyer.

It is important to maintain a paper trail! Try to do things in writing (e.g. email) if you can, and note time/date of phone conversations/meetings that occurred.

Trying to mediate and reach an agreement without involving legal/consular means is going to reach your desired outcome faster, and will likely cost you a lot less.

Good luck!

Answer 3

It sounds like the big problem is rooted under your unwillingness to communicate problems to others. If you haven't said anything to your advisor or the department, they are likely unaware of the situation. Your advisor may not be checking financial statements on a regular basis and may not know that you're not being paid properly. The administrators in your program who process the enrollment may not know there's a problem. Or it could be as simple as the paperwork getting lost by the payroll department in the main administration and them not paying you.

But if you remain silent, nothing will be fixed. There is a proverb:

The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

If you have a problem, you need to speak up, or your silence will be treated as a sign that's nothing wrong.

In this particular situation, I'd start by going to the assistant who is responsible for graduate students. For a program in the US or Canada, there should be someone on the administrative staff—not the faculty—in your department who handles sending out letters and emails to students.

(As for working with other students, I don't see how they're in any position to make a difference here, or what studying or collaborating with you has anything to do with funding.)

Answer 4

It's not clear from your question what, if any, action you have already taken to try to arrange for this funding to be paid. (Re your edit, your classmates are not the approprite point-of-contact for this problem; they have no control over funding and no power to fix the problem.) Unless you have already done so, in the first instance you should make your supervisor aware that there are outstanding funding expectations and see if he can resolve this. If he is unhelpful then you should take the matter to the administration of your department and make them aware of the problem. Since you are experiencing financial hardship, make sure you are clear that this matter is urgent, and you are having serious difficulty funding your place at the university. In the unlikely event that the university administration is unable/unwilling to assist you, you should seek advice from legal services at the university or some kind of free legal service.

The good news here is that you have a letter saying that you are a fully funded student, so presumably that entitles you to some baseline of funding. Universities are not fly-by-night operations, so if they have promised to give you funding then they will honour that promise unless there is some good (and lawful) reason to rescind that promise.

Answer 5

I am sorry you find yourself in such a situation. Unfortunately, salary abuse of overseas students and postdocs is becoming increasingly common. Typically the whole "scheme" relies on your silence and submissiveness, which means the most efficient way of defending yourself is by being vocal about this.

You say you're avoiding approaching the topic directly because you want to "preserve your relationship" with your adviser. As you noticed currently your relationship is openly exploitative. There's no way of changing that without displeasing your abuser. In fact I believe your relationship with your adviser is already broken, regardless of whether this person smiles back at you at the intersections and/or taps you on the back.

You must find out the extent of this situation. Reach out for other overseas students and postdocs and inquire them directly. If they seem to avoid the topic altogether, they are likely in a similar stand. Go immediately to the administration and open out. Find the Principal. Have you considered contacting the Consulate of your country? Usually the right phone call can solve almost any situation.

You might like to read about my recent similar experience as a postdoc.

Since you're a Master student, if you conclude the situation won't change, I strongly suggest you to quit, take some time off to digest this mess, and try again elsewhere. Life's long and you don't want to let the bad attitude of others to ruin your plans.

Start now! Good luck.