Financial Aid for Graduate Students in English
- General information
- Teaching Assistantships
- Project Assistantships and Research Assistantships
- University Fellowships
- Work-Study
- Advanced Opportunity Fellowships
General Information
To find out how to apply for financial aid, including loans, please check the UW's information on Financial Aid for Graduate Students. You will want to begin the process as early as January of the year you begin your program.
Teaching Assistantships
All applicants to the Program in Literary Studies and Composition and Rhetoric are automatically considered for teaching assistantships. You must have a Master's degree in order to teach in our programs, so students beginning in their first year in the Literary Studies doctoral program will not teach until their second year in Madison.
Some students in the Applied English Linguistics Masters program may be eligible for a Teaching Assistantship appointment in the Program in English as a Second Language. There are very few positions available and these are awarded to students who have had some previous experience in teaching ESL. For International students whose first language is not English, we also require that applicants for a TA position have a score of 60 (a perfect score) on the SPEAK test administered by the Program in English as a Second Language.
With the exception of MFA students awarded Renk Fellowships, all MFA students receive teaching assistantships in each of their semesters in the MFA program. There is no application process. See the Creative Writing website for extensive details regarding financial aid for MFA students. MFA teacher training includes the Creative Writing Pedagogy Seminar, a non-theoretical 3-credit practicum in which MFA students who are teaching a writing class are provided with supervision, ideas and techniques to help them structure, conduct, and improve their classes, one-on-one mentoring, and individual and group support.
Project Assistantships and Research Assistantships
Project assistants are graduate students employed to assist with research, training, or other academic programs or projects. PAs are included in a labor agreement between the State of Wisconsin and the Teaching Assistants Association (TAA). Available positions are filled in accordance with the current contract. A project assistant devotes up to half-time to work on the professor's project. Newly admitted students may be nominated for a Project Assistantship by the Admissions Committee.
Unlike students holding PA appointments, students nominated for a Research Assistantship must have completed all preliminary doctoral examinations and all courses in the minor to be eligible since an RA in English devotes all of his/her time to the dissertation, which must be germane to the professor's own scholarly work. Research assistants are required to carry a full load each semester and at least two graduate-level credits during the eight-week summer. Courses numbered below 300, audits, and pass/fail do not satisfy these enrollment requirements.
University Fellowships
The English Department's annual application deadline for University Fellowships is December 15th. To apply for a fellowship, simply check the fellowship box on the Application Form or indicate your interest on the online application. Once your application is complete, this will automatically enroll you in fellowship competition. Since fellowships are competitive among graduate students from all departments in the University, an applicant should have a strong undergraduate record and all A's or nearly all A's in graduate work. Awards are announced in early March. These awards include a stipend, plus a complete tuition remission (tuition is fully covered by the Graduate School and is not taken out of the stipend).
Work Study
Work study is part of a student's financial aid package as determined by the Office of Student Financial Services. (To find out how to apply for financial aid, including loans, please check with this office. You will want to begin the process as early as the January of the year you begin your program.) It is a government subsidized program where the department pays 40% of the student's salary and the government pays the remaining 60%.
For graduate students who have applied for financial aid and received work study funding, positions are readily available. For the most part, these positions entail working for a faculty member on their own research project – checking information at the library, picking up books, making copies, working on bibliographies. If a student has extremely good software skills, faculty members are always looking for assistance with databases, bibliographies, and Web sites.
All work-study jobs are advertised on the UW Job Center Web site.
Pay is generally $10/hr for this type of work. Professors generally begin advertising work study positions in July and August.
Please note: You need not have been awarded work-study in order to work for a faculty member. If research funding is available, a faculty member can choose a student to work for them who doesn't have work study funding. However, their research funds must then pick up 100% of the cost.
Advanced Opportunity Fellowships
Students must notify the Graduate Division, 7195 Helen C. White Hall, by December 15th that they are interested in the Advanced Opportunity Fellowship for the following academic year. Awards are made to students who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents who qualify under one of the following categories:
- Under-represented minorities:
- African American
- Native American
- Hispanic: Mexican American, Chicano/a, Puerto Rican
- South East Asian: Cambodian, Hmong, Laotian, Vietnamese
- McNair Students: students who participated in a McNair Program
- Wisconsin residents who are first generation to complete a Bachelors degree AND who participated in a TRIO Program (Upward Bound, Talent Search, Educational Opportunities Centers, Student Support Services)
Awards pay full tuition (including segregated fees) and a stipend for one annual or one academic year. Recipients are eligible for health insurance.
See the Office of Fellowships Administration's listings for more information on this and other sources of financial support.
(rev. 9/2006)
