The financial aid offices of the schools to which you are applying can give you information on any available institutional fellowships. Spend time at the library or on the Internet and investigate free resources, but don't pay money to scholarship search services. Through this arrangement, teaching assistants help professors by leading seminar sections, reading papers, and meeting with undergraduates. Research assistants, common in the sciences, oversee laboratories and assist professors on projects. Both arrangements allow students to earn money while gaining experience in their field.
Some universities also reduce tuition for students working as assistants.
Most graduate students try to minimize the loan component of their financing, but sometimes that just simply isn't possible.