Financial Aid

The Department provides financial aid for most of its PhD students in the form of Fellowships, Graduate Assistantships (GA) or University Graduate Scholarships. Fellowships and Assistantships include a full tuition scholarship plus a monthly stipend. All financial aid offers are contingent upon the availability of funds.

Amounts can vary depending on the funding source, but the current minimum stipend is $15,000 for the academic year and $2,000 for the summer, for a total of $17,000. Students can expect at least four years of funding.

Assistantships require departmental duties of up to 20 hours per week. Students either teach their own courses or work as teaching or research assistants for faculty members in the department. Fellowships do not require departmental duties.

Three types of competitive university fellowships are available: Yates Scholar (a one-year university-wide fellowship available to outstanding minority graduate students at the beginning of their graduate career); Taft Dissertation Fellowship (a one-year fellowship offered to the top PhD candidate in the department); University Dissertation Completion Fellowship (a one-year university-wide fellowship). In addition, the department encourages students to pursue external Fellowships.