Financial Support

Graduate students who enter the program with a B.A. and proceed normally are guaranteed 5 ½ years of full funding (tuition and stipend); students entering with an M.A. receive one year's course credit and 4 ½ years of funding. Every entering student receives a full fellowship during the first year. In their second year, students entering with a B.A. receive both funding and mentoring through our TA program, which enables them to assist a fulltime faculty member in a literature course and to be introduced to the First-Year Writing Program (FYWP). For the next three years each student teaches one small seminar a semester; and in the following year, students receives a semester-length dissertation fellowship. Students entering with an M.A. proceed similarly, except that they normally skip the TA year.

There are also opportunities to obtain additional support through competitive fellowships, as well as a few Dean's Humanities Fellowships, designed to increase diversity in our field. The university awards several Provost's Fellowships to incoming students. Advanced students may also apply to team-teach with a fulltime faculty member through the GIFT program or to receive a fellowship at our Humanities Center. In addition, a student who moves very quickly and successfully through the program may choose to replace both the final year of teaching and the semester-length fellowship with a full year's dissertation fellowship.

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