The Unofficial SMART Scholarship Forum

What companies will buy out your contract? I’m in phase 1 and am very scared for phase 2 after experiencing my internship.

NotHappy wrote:What companies will buy out your contract? I’m in phase 1 and am very scared for phase 2 after experiencing my internship.

I was in a similar situation. It really depends on how much the buy out is, but usually if it's 6 figures like most scholars have, few, if any will buy that much out. Larger companies like Raytheon/Boeing/Lockheed were willing to do bigger signing bonuses for me but they typically aren't large enough to sway students from taking on that much debt if that is a bigger concern for the student. It honestly doesn't hurt to apply. I did to see what my options were. Just be up front to the companies about your SMART commitment/situation.

NotHappy wrote:What companies will buy out your contract? I’m in phase 1 and am very scared for phase 2 after experiencing my internship.

What kind of issues are you facing? Did they not come up during your site visit? Is this something you can discuss with a superior at your facility?

I am a SMART Scholar who is happy with my SF, but I routinely get solicited by various startups and other big industry (Google, Microsoft, etc) and can tell you from that they will not buy out your contract.
I tell these companies that approach me that they have to pay for my entire graduate education, give me a nearly 40k a year stipend without requiring work of me for most of the year, cover my insurance, offer me access to their facilities while I am studying, and then once I am done guarantee me a minimum 6 years of work, and provide me with a pension.

While my last two requests are because these are things that working for the gov't under a SMART agreement gets me, they are generally very, very uninterested as soon as I get the first request out.