Financial aid is available from department and other units on campus in the form of university fellowships, teaching and research assistantships, departmental graduate assistantships, and tuition/fee waivers, loans, work-study grants.
Availability: New applicants for admission to the graduate program receive automatic consideration for financial aid within the Department. Continuing students may apply each spring upon receipt of a prompt from the Department. Announcements of external sources of support are posted on the Bulletin Board.
Teaching Assistantships: The Department offers a limited number of teaching assistantships for the 200-level linguistics courses to graduate students who have passed their Qualifying Exam as well as assistantships for the teaching of Arabic, Bamana, Hebrew, Hindi-Urdu, Kiswahili, Lingala, Sanskrit, Wolof, and Zulu. New students are eligible to apply for the foreign language appointments, and should include a letter of application for a specific language along with their admission application packet.
Departmental Graduate Assistantships: The Department offers two graduate appointments that may include a Tuition and Partial Service Fee Waiver (TPSFW) as a reading-room assistant to oversee the Henry and Renee Kahane Linguistics Research Room and as an Illinois Phonology and Phonetics Lab assistant. Additional assistantships may be available with faculty members to help in the editing and production of departmental publications or provide classroom assistance.
Research Assistantships: Faculty members frequently hire students to assist in research. These appointments may be quarter- or half-time appointments with the possibility of Tuition and Partial Service Fee Waivers or they may be graduate hourly positions. Students are encouraged to contact individual faculty members directly concerning availability of these assistantships.
Fellowships: The Department usually offers Four University Fellowships each year. Two are offered to continuing registered graduate students, and two to new students. Fellowship stipends range from $10,000 to $20,000 for a nine month period in addition to a Tuition and Partial Service Fee Waiver. New students who accept a fellowship can expect to have the fellowship renewed for a second year provided they maintain a record of excellence expected of fellows.
Up to three Illinois Distinguished Fellowhips are also offered each year to incoming graduate students. These fellowships are awarded for three years and carry a Tuition and Partial Service Fee Waiver and yearly stipend of $17,000. These fellowships are extremely competitive and require an excellent undergraduate academic record: a high GPA, competitive GRE scores, strong recommendation letters, and evidence of research potential are necessary.
Foreign Language Area Studies (FLAS) fellowships are also offered through many Centers at the University. These fellowships are awarded for one year and carry a Tuition and Partial Service Fee Waiver and yearly stipend of $15,000. These are competitive fellowships that support graduate study in modern foreign languages in combination with area studies, international studies, or international or area aspects of professional studies. Various languages, classified by Center, are approved by the U.S. Department of Education for FLAS fellowships at Illinois. The number of FLAS fellowships available vary by year and by Center. Students wishing to study a foreign language are highly encouraged to apply for these.