Our PhD program offers full financial support at nationally competitive levels. Students usually receive five years of guaranteed support (assuming continued progress toward the degree) and a year-long teaching release while writing their dissertations. Stipends for 2022-23 begin at approximately $24,840, though several of our students have fellowships that increase their stipends to as much as $32,760.
We offer special funds for students from underrepresented groups (U.S. citizens and permanent residents who are African-Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native American Indians). The Bunton-Waller Graduate Awards, for example, give four years of support for doctoral study. Our students have also regularly received Sparks Fellowships and University Graduate Fellowships.
Students on assistantships take on a variety of assignments, including both language and literature teaching, working as a research assistant, or being an editorial assistant for departmentally-affiliated journals.
Our students have had substantial success in receiving competitive internal grants, awards, and fellowships, many of them offered through the Office of Research and Graduate Studies of the College of the Liberal Arts, as well as Funding Awards and Grant Opportunities for their study and research from external organizations such as the Fulbright Program, the American Association of University Women, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and many others.
Our annual departmental travel budget for graduate students is about $15,000.
Current students may apply for funding using the Graduate Travel Funding Application.