The Unofficial SMART Scholarship Forum

I for sure think it is worth it. While government pay is a little lower it increases fairly quickly. With a bachelor's you'll be a GS7, Masters GS9, PHD GS11. You get to GS12 within 3 years which puts you pretty close to the non-civil servant workforce. Once you are a civil servant it's relatively easy to move to other civil servant positions across all agencies. Even if after your contract is up you decide DOD isn't for you, you have really great real world experience and will be hired elsewhere easily. If you stay a civil servant the benefits are great and the pension. You can pretty much retire in 30 years. I personally was already looking to be a civil servant before finding this scholarship, however, my original plan was 5 years of contracted work at a higher pay and bad benefits. Then you're brought on as a GS12. I look at this as 4 years, they're also paying $75k for school and we have a mentor helping us through. so I can handle a lower pocketed pay!!!

In cyber security, you can likely make more after school than you will for your SF post-graduation. Heck, my current internship pays more than the top-step GS-7 would in the SF Bay Area (which would be around 60k adjusted for locality) and it's not even a great paying internship for the area. However, this is as close as you can get to guaranteed employment and it will come with a security clearance which will open up doors if you decide to leave the DOD later on. So your choice is between getting paid to go to school and a guaranteed, lower paying job that you will be stuck with for 3-4 years (not sure if you asked for 3 or 4) or higher potential pay after graduation.

A lot of installations hire you on at the gs7 rate with promotion to 9 and 11 one and two years afterwards. Is it worth it to you, I dunno but it's a secure job

I am currently a freshman cyber security engineering major and have been offered an award, I know the benefits are the following :

Full tuition and education related fees (does not include items such as meal plans, housing, or parking)
Stipend paid at a rate of $25,000 - $38,000 depending on degree pursuing (may be prorated depending on award length)
Summer research internships
Health Insurance allowance up to $1,200 per calendar year
Miscellaneous Supplies Allowance of $1,000 per academic year
Mentoring
Employment placement after graduation


My question is: DOES ANYONE KNOW WHAT THEY ARE LIKELY TO PAY YOU AFTER GRADUATION for engineering?
ALSO: Does your salary increase at a high rate?