Ph.D. Program

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 2010-2011, all of our students without other sources of financial aid received a tuition waiver and a stipend of at least $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. Dissertation fellowships are sometimes also available.

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.

Research assistantships. Almost half of our students assist faculty with grant-funded research. Frequently this involves performing experiments and studies, working with human subjects, and preparing documents for submission and/or lectures for presentation.

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.

Teaching. Some graduate students teach in one of the foreign language departments or the Writing Program.

NSF fellowships. 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.

Country-of-origin fellowships. 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.