Graduate School: Support
Who pays for Grad School? Can I get a Fellowship? Heading link
Attending graduate school in Mathematics has one great advantage over almost all other fields. Because so many other subjects require training in mathematics, from Calculus up through Ordinary Differential Equations and Linear Algebra, there is a great demand for Teaching Assistants to help with these courses. This means that when applying for graduate admission, you can also realistically hope to be offered a Teaching Assistantship which pays you a monthly stipend, along with your tuition.
In the MSCS Department at UIC, the stipend for a 50% TA position is \$17,000 for nine months, with a possibility to obtain support for two summer months for many students. The stipend also includes a Tuition & Fee Waiver, so that you do not pay for graduate tuition, but do have to pay for some fees like health insurance. While this is not a great paying job, it is still livable. The rate of pay and duties for other graduate programs varies widely. The AMS online brochure www.ams.org/employment/asst.pdf lists this information for all graduate programs in Math in the US and Canada.
Many universities also offer Graduate Fellowships to their most outstanding applicants. These pay the same as a TA position, or sometimes much more (\$30,000 for example) and include a TFW. These tend to be few in number, and if a graduate program you applied to offers you one, then they really want you!
There is one more option for funding – The National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship. These Fellowships offer 3 years of graduate support worth over \$122,500. In addition, the university where you pursue your graduate studies with one of these Fellowships, traditionally pays your tuition also. It is a great deal! And as can be expected, these are highly competitive, and very prestigious. None-the-less, they are also distributed by region, so students applying from UIC have as good a chance of receiving one as from other schools.
The main requirements for submitting a competitive application is a very strong undergraduate record, and excellent letters of recommendation from hopefully three faculty members.
You can learn more about the NSF Graduate Fellowship at the main web page www.nsfgrfp.org.
If you are interested in applying for an NSF Graduate Fellowship, the Office of Undergraduate Studies in MSCS and the University Fellowship Office will be very enthusiastic in helping you prepare your application. The application deadline for mathematics is typically in the first week of November, so it is time to get started with the application process now. Start by contacting the Director of Graduate Studies about applying, and we’ll schedule a meeting quickly to discuss your next steps.
The Last Step
Start Now! and Good Luck!