Graduate funding

Assistantships

A graduate assistantship is the main funded path: you work 10–20 hours a week as a teaching assistant, research assistant, or project assistant, and in exchange you receive a stipend paid over the academic year plus tuition remission (often full for a 20-hour appointment, partial for a 10-hour one) and eligibility for the graduate health plan. A half-time appointment is treated as full-time enrollment for loan and visa purposes even though the credit count is lower. Appointments are usually one year, renewable, and awarded by departments and individual faculty with grants — so applying early and contacting potential faculty supervisors directly matters as much as the central application.

Read the offer for what it does not cover: segregated fees, books, and summer are frequently the student's responsibility, and the stipend is taxable income.

Scholarships, fellowships and grants

The graduate school and departments award merit scholarships and named fellowships (some competitive fellowships carry a stipend with no work requirement), and there are targeted awards for research travel, conference presentation, thesis and dissertation costs, and students from underrepresented backgrounds. External fellowships from professional societies and foundations are worth real effort — they pay well and travel with you. A single graduate application is considered for most internal awards, but the travel and research grants have their own rolling or termly deadlines.

Employer tuition assistance

Many part-time graduate students — especially in the applied master's programs built for working professionals — are funded by an employer. Porter supports this with predictable evening and online scheduling, itemized invoices and enrollment verification on the employer's timeline, and a deferred-payment option that waits for the employer's reimbursement instead of demanding payment upfront then making you chase it. Bring your employer's policy to the student-accounts office early so the billing is set up before the first due date.

Loans and the funding calendar

Degree-seeking graduate students who file the FAFSA can borrow federal unsubsidized and Grad PLUS loans up to the cost of attendance, and must maintain the minimum enrollment their program sets (often 5 credits, or a half-time assistantship) to stay eligible. Plan the year backward from deadlines: FAFSA as early as it opens, assistantship and fellowship applications in the winter for the following fall, external fellowship deadlines often in the autumn a full year ahead, and travel-grant requests before you commit to a conference. The graduate school's funding staff will do a one-on-one planning session — use it in year one, not year two.