Prospective Students
Current Students
Financial Aid
It is department policy that, resources permitting, all students are adequately supported for the full five years of the graduate program. For many years now, we have been completely successful in achieving this goal. During 2008-2009, all of our students without other sources of financial aid received a tuition waiver and a stipend of $18500. Additional summer support is sometimes available.
Department funding sources include:
Departmental fellowships, which require no teaching and only minimal duties, are normally awarded to all incoming students without other support. These fellowships allow new students to complete their first year courses without interference from teaching or research duties.
Teaching assistantships and associateships. About half of our students are supported in this way. They either lead discussion sections of LINGUIST 101 "People and their Language" or LINGUIST 201 "Introduction to Linguistic Theory", or they have full responsibility for a section of LINGUIST 201. Occasionally students teach more advanced courses, such as undergraduate phonology or semantics.
Almost half of our students are supported as research assistants on one of the current research grants.
A few students, wishing to broaden their experience, teach in one of the foreign language departments or the Writing Program.
Essential to our success in finding support for everyone has been the contribution that students themselves make by seeking sources of outside support. Therefore, applicants are strongly encouraged to apply to all available outside sources of funds:
U.S. citizens or permanent residents may be eligible for Graduate Fellowships offered by the National Science Foundation, which supports work in linguistics. The deadline for these three-year fellowships falls early in the academic year and a particular GRE test date may be required. Applicants are urged to make early inquiries.
Citizens of other countries should investigate fellowships that may be available to them. For example, the Canada Council has supported many Canadian citizens in our department, and Fulbright grants are often available to citizens of other countries. In addition, individual countries or universities may have fellowship programs for overseas study.
The University of Massachusetts Graduate Student Grant Service can provide useful information about available fellowships.
Your application for admission, if submitted on time, is also an application for financial aid. Please inform us at any point if you are successful in obtaining outside support.