Teaching vs Research Assistantships: Key Differences

Teaching vs research assistantship is one of the first funding decisions many graduate students face, and sometimes the choice is made for you by what’s on offer. Both are paid appointments that commonly include a stipend and, at many institutions, tuition support. The difference is the work: a teaching assistant (TA) supports courses, while a research assistant (RA) works on a research project, often one funded by a faculty member’s grant.

This article compares the two to help you decide. For how teaching assistantships work in detail, including duties, funding and evaluating an offer, see our pillar on teaching assistantships.

Side by side

Teaching and research assistantships compared

Teaching and research assistantships compared

Consideration	Teaching assistantship	Research assistantship
The work	Sections, labs, grading and office hours	Experiments, data collection, analysis or other project tasks
Often funded by	The department or university	A research grant held by a faculty member, or the institution
Who directs you	The course instructor	The principal investigator on the project
Schedule	Follows the teaching calendar, with peaks around exams	Follows the project; can be steadier or tied to grant milestones
Link to your own research	Usually separate from your thesis	Can overlap with your thesis, or be a separate project
Experience you build	Teaching, communication and classroom management	Research methods, publications and project skills

How to decide

Work through these questions with your actual offers in front of you.

1. Does the RA project overlap with your thesis? If it does, an RA can let paid work and degree work reinforce each other. If it doesn’t, an RA is a separate commitment, much like a TA.
2. What are your career goals? If you might teach at a college or university, teaching experience is valuable. If you’re aiming for industry research, RA project experience may matter more. Many students benefit from some of both.
3. How secure is the funding? RA positions tied to a grant can depend on that grant’s timeline. Ask how long the position is funded and what happens if the grant ends.
4. What are the terms? Compare stipend, months covered, tuition and fees, health insurance and expected hours. They aren’t automatically the same for TAs and RAs at the same institution.
5. Who would you work with? The relationship with your RA supervisor or course instructor shapes the day-to-day experience.

An invented teaching example: a first-year doctoral student is offered a TA in an introductory course or an RA on a project next to their intended thesis topic. The RA looks better for their research, but it’s funded for one year on a grant that ends next summer. The student asks the department whether TA funding would be available afterwards, and accepts the RA on that basis. The point isn’t which they chose, but that they asked about what happens next.

Can you switch, or do both?

Many graduate students hold different appointments in different years, for example a TA early on and an RA once they’ve joined a research group. Whether you can hold both at once, or switch mid-year, depends on your institution’s rules and your funding package. Ask your graduate program.

Taxes

Both kinds of appointment involve payment for services. IRS Publication 970 explains that the part of a scholarship or fellowship representing payment for teaching or research required as a condition of the award can’t be excluded from income. How this applies depends on your situation. This is general information, not tax advice.

If fellowships are also on the table

Fellowships work differently again, often funding you without teaching or research duties for the institution. See scholarship vs fellowship vs assistantship, and the scholarship and fellowship comparison worksheet for a side-by-side view.

A practical next step

Put each offer you have into the comparison table above, filling in the details from your offer letters. Highlight any row you can’t fill in, and ask your program about those before you decide. For a TA offer, the teaching assistantship offer checklist lists the terms to confirm.