Financial Aid for Graduate Study

This page outlines the main sources of funding for graduate study in Linguistics at Penn, both for entering and continuing students. Please direct any questions to

Deadline

The cycle of fellowship applications, competitions and awards is centered around a single important deadline, which this year is December 15th. New students must ensure that their complete applications -- including transcripts, test scores, letters of recommendation, personal statement, and any supporting materials -- arrive by this date in order to be considered for financial aid from or through the university. You should call the graduate admissions office at (215) 898-7444 well in advance of this time to see whether the necessary materials have arrived and take appropriate steps if any materials have not arrived. If documents are being sent in close to the deadline, contact the Linguistics department to let us know that they are on the way.

Support for entering students

See also this overview of Graduate Division financial awards.

Benjamin Franklin Fellowships (five years)

These fellowships provide the student with full support for five years. In addition, the fellowship covers tuition for the full program of twenty credits. In the second and third years, the student serves as a teaching or research fellow, thus giving the student valuable additional experience. In the normal case, all students offered admission to the Ph.D. program are also given a Benjamin Franklin Fellowship to cover the costs of their studies.

Foreign Language Area Studies Fellowships

The University's regional study centers -- the African Studies Center, the South Asia Center, the East Asia Center, and the East European Center -- award FLAS Fellowships to qualified applicants who are interested in pursuing a career of study and research in the languages and cultures of their regions. Interested students should contact the director of the center concerned. The names and addresses of the directors can be obtained by calling our office. Students who have previously demonstrated interest in a particular region will be ranked more highly than those with no previous interest in or exposure to a region.

Fontaine Fellowships for minority students

The University also grants Fontaine Fellowships, named for Dr. William T. Fontaine, the first African-American scholar to become a full Professor at Penn. These fellowships provide partial funding for qualified minority students entering Ph.D. programs. Under the current system, a first-year Fontaine Fellow will hold a full fellowship. In subsequent years the fellowship can be renewed; half the student's support will then come from the Fontaine fund, and the Graduate Group will assume the other half (usually by employing the student as a Teaching Assistant or Research Assistant -- see below).

National fellowship competitions for first-year graduate students

Seniors in college may apply for a graduate fellowship through national competitions, such as those for fellowships granted by the National Science Foundation and the Mellon Foundation. Some of those institutions offer further competitions for continuing graduate students. At present the National Science Foundation has a regular program for first-year graduate students. Applications should be submitted early in the fall. Other opportunities are the programs funded by the Department of Education (e.g. the Javits Fellowships) and the American Association of University Women.

Additional information on the national competitions can be obtained through Penn's Career Planning and Placement Service (20 McNeil Bldg, 215-898-7530). They maintain a small library of materials on graduate fellowships, and their staff are extremely helpful.

Support for continuing students

Graduate research fellowships and research assistantships

Some students have been supported during their graduate careers by working on research projects for members of the graduate group faculty. The number and type of positions are liable to change from year to year as new research grants are received and old ones terminated. Most research projects operate on a one-to-two year budget, which must be projected a year or two in advance. As a rule, research assistants work 20 hours per week on a project. Students will normally become acquainted with the needs and goals of ongoing research projects through conversations with faculty and other students.

Employment as language teachers in other departments

A few graduate students in Linguistics have found support by teaching basic language courses in other departments; for example, French, Italian, Spanish in Romance Languages; Chinese, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies; Bangla [Bengali], Gujarati, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu in South Asia Regional Studies. Applicants who are native speakers of languages other than English or have had experience in teaching particular languages should write directly to the chairs of the departments in question.

Teaching courses in the College of Liberal and Professional Studies

Advanced graduate students in Linguistics occasionally teach undergraduate courses in the College of Liberal and Professional Studies. These courses have included Introduction to Linguistics (001), Introduction to Sociolinguistics (102), and Introduction to Formal Linguistics (106). The instructor receives a modest stipend for each course taught as well as half of the tuition cost for up to three courses or the entire dissertation fee for one semester.

School of Arts and Sciences Dissertation Fellowships

The University offers support for dissertation-level students who have already submitted proposals and are usually in their final year or two. Fellowships are renewable for a second year, but renewal is not assured. Candidates are nominated by individual graduate groups in a university-wide competition. These awards are likely to be phased out under the new five-year fellowship program.

National Science Foundation grants in support of dissertations

In addition to the possibilities outlined above, there are other federally and privately funded fellowships for which students can apply. Information on such programs is available through the Career Planning and Placement Service (20 McNeil Bldg, 215-898-7530). Particularly worth mentioning are National Science Foundation grants for dissertation support. These are sought by the faculty member who is the supervisor of the dissertation and appears as the principle investigator on the grant. They are not meant to cover unusual expenses connected with a dissertation, such as travel and equipment, and are not to provide living expenses. A number of Penn students have completed their dissertations with the help of National Science Foundation funds under this program.