The department offers financial aid on a competitive basis to full-time students. We encourage you to apply for this aid. Only full-time students may receive financial aid.

Types of Awards:

Graduate Assistantships (GA) completely cover tuition (up to 18 credit hours per quarter) and provide a monthly stipend. GA’s typically serve as teaching or graduate assistants for the department, working between 15 and 20 hours a week in these roles. About 9 first-year students receive GA’s each year, which has been about one half of the first year class in most years. For the 2006-2007 academic year the 9-month stipend was $10,289.

University Graduate Scholarships (UGS) are tuition-only awards that do not provide a monthly stipend. UGS awards pay only a portion of the tuition costs—typically between 50 and 80 percent.

Taft Graduate Enhancement Fellowships may also be available for exceptional students. These awards provide the student with a one quarter fellowship without any teaching or research assistant duties in the department. This fellowship is then paired with a GA award for the remaining quarters in the students academic year.

Financial Aid Decision Process: Financial aid decisions are typically made in early March, so to be considered for financial aid you should have a complete application folder into our department by March 1. Notification will be sent to all accepted applicants requesting financial aid by April 1.

Special Note for International Students: The department does offer some financial aid to international students on a competitive basis. The international students who have entered our program have done well academically and have found competitive jobs with their degrees in a wide range of industries and organizations.

Students are eligible for Taft Graduate Enrichment Awards. These awards support graduate students in Taft departments in research projects that will significantly advance their degree program. Individual or joint applications are accepted. Examples of the use of such money include paying for travel to a library, archive or other source of primary research materials, purchase of software or data sets; and expenses involved in conducting interviews or distributing surveys.

Students are eligible for Taft Graduate Student Travel Grants that can be used to pay for Graduate student travel -- domestic or international -- and expenses for those presenting papers, other creative work, or serving as discussants at academic conferences.)

The Hewett-Kautz fund in the Department of Economics provides a limited amount of support to graduate students. The fund provides money for the Valentine Award, a $1000 prize given to a graduate student who has preformed remarkably well their first year in the program.