A critical concern for many prospective graduate students is how to fund their education. Graduate funding varies from university to university, from department to department, and from program to program even within a department. Some information on funding in HESP at Maryland is described below.
Funding Opportunities
Our department considers students who indicate their interest for funding offers on a rolling basis during the admissions process.
This funding can typically take two forms:
- Graduate Assistantships (GAs): These assistantships provide tuition remission, health benefits, and a stipend, in exchange for a departmental work requirement. This requirement is typically 10 hours per week for 9.5 months. Some GA assignments are from the department, and others may be awarded from individual faculty grants.
- Montgomery County Public School (MCPS) Awards: These awards cover student tuition costs in exchange for an agreement to work for MCPS after graduation; these awards are only available to MA-SLP students who have already completed their prerequisite coursework.
(We also hire some students on an hourly basis; these positions are not included in the proportions above, and do not include health benefits or tuition remission.)
Graduate Assistantship Information:
These awards are frequently made as part of the admissions process, but additional funding positions typically become available later in the year as well. The department will generally fund MA and Au.D. students for a maximum of two years; if a student has already been funded from departmental lines for 2 years, he/she is expected to then find another source of funding for any subsequent years. Please note that being awarded a GA position one year does not automatically guarantee a position the subsequent year; this depends on several factors, including the evaluation of the student’s work in the position, as well as the availability of funds.
Many of our students have graduate assistantship positions from other offices on campus, particularly within the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences (BSOS). Students who have been offered admission to our program are eligible to apply for GA positions across campus, even before making a decision as to whether to attend UMD. GA positions are typically posted here.
Ph.D. students
The department funds doctoral students via a variety of mechanisms; some are funded as graduate research assistants, others as teaching assistants or lecturers, and others are funded on fellowships. Still, others are funded on university training grants or individual research grants. These funding mechanisms provide both stipends and tuition remission; graduate assistantships also provide health benefits. Currently (2014/2015 academic year), 90% of our doctoral students are funded by the department or on grant funding.
Fellowships in Support of Diversity and Inclusion
The College of Behavioral and Social Sciences (BSOS) values diversity and inclusion and believes science and science teams benefit from diverse groups of faculty and trainees who bring diverse interests, perspectives, interpretations of, and solutions to human problems, Therefore, BSOS offers recruitment fellowships designed to enhance the diversity of our doctoral student population. Applicants must be U.S. Citizens or Permanent Residents. Students who wish to be considered for these recuirtment fellowships must submit diversity and inclusion essays with their application material. This support is available only to students admitted into our Ph.D. program. Completing an essay to be considered for this support is optional and the essay is not part of the admissions process. Click here for more information.
Department Funding Resources:
- Application for new or renewal of departmental funding for already-enrolled students
- Application for Departmental Funding for Ph.D. Students
- MCM Fund for Student Research Excellence (word) (pdf)
- Rao Family Award
- Karin Young Memorial Endowment Award
- PhD Funding Opportunity: Center for Comparative and Evolutionary Biology of Hearing
UMD Financial Resources
Graduate School Fellowships / Awards
Please note: Most of these fellowships have limited numbers of departmental applicants; that is, only one or two applicants may be nominated per department. As a result, our department must select which students to nominate, necessitating an earlier departmental deadline than the posted graduate school deadline. The deadlines listed below are the university-wide deadlines; all applications are due to the department's Director of Graduate Studies by the Tuesday that is at least 1 week prior. (Thus, for a Wed., February 20 deadline, the application would be due to the DGS by February 12.)
These are one-semester awards intended to support outstanding doctoral students who are in the final stages of writing their dissertation and whose primary source of support is unrelated to their dissertation. Wylie Dissertation Fellowships carry a stipend of $10,000 plus candidacy tuition remission and $800 toward the cost of health insurance. The Graduate School awards approximately 40 Wylie Dissertation Fellowships per year.
Graduate Dean's Dissertation Fellowships are one-year awards intended to support outstanding doctoral students who have advanced to candidacy. The fellowship carries a 12-month stipend of $25,000, plus candidacy tuition remission. Ten fellowships will be awarded.
The Summer Research Fellowships provide support to doctoral students at “mid-career,” that is, in the period approximately before, during, or after achievement of candidacy, and are intended to enable students to prepare for or complete a key benchmark in their program’s requirements. Summer Research Fellowships carry stipends of $5,000; awards were made to 47 students in summer 2011.
This award was established by the daughters of Dr. Mabel S. Spencer. It honors the memory and outstanding professional achievements of Dr. Spencer. It carries a stipend of $15,000 and candidacy tuition remission (if not covered by other tuition remission). Dr. Spencer was dedicated to programs that encourage women, underrepresented minorities, and international students.
The Dr. Mabel S. Spencer Award for Excellence in Graduate Achievement
This award was established by Mary Jack Wintle (Mrs. James W. Longest). It honors the memory and outstanding personal and professional achievements of Dr. James W. Longest. It provides $2,000 to support doctoral dissertation research in the social sciences with potential benefits for small and/or disadvantaged communities. Candidacy tuition remission also will be granted for each of two semesters (if not covered by other tuition remission).
Dr. James W. Longest Memorial Award for Social Science Research
This award offers $1,000 to an outstanding doctoral candidate who has demonstrated excellence beyond his or her course work, and who has served at least one academic year as a teaching assistant with a commendable performance.
The Michael J. Pelczar Award for Excellence in Graduate Study
This award offers $1,000 to a student who “best exemplifies interdisciplinary scholarship achievement.”
The Graduate School invites colleges to select outstanding students for the Graduate All-S.T.A.R. Fellowship for AY 13-14. The Graduate All-S.T.A.R. Fellowships are intended to support and honor graduate students who are both outstanding scholars and outstanding graduate assistants. Graduate All-S.T.A.R. Fellows will be featured on the Graduate School website.
This award recognizes original work that makes an unusually significant contribution to the discipline. Both methodological and substantive quality will be judged. Awards will be given each year in four broad disciplinary areas: 1) Mathematics, Physical Sciences, and Engineering; 2) Social Sciences; 3) Humanities and Fine Arts; and 4) Biological and Life Sciences. The Council of Graduate Schools uses these categories for its annual national dissertation awards. Recipients of the Distinguished Dissertation Award will receive an honorarium of $1000 and may be nominated by the University for the CGS national award.
Scholarships:
- MSHA Scholarship
- Maryland Workforce Shortage Student Assistance Grant Program
- Audiology Foundation of America (AFA) Scholarships (Au.D. only)
- Gates Millenium Scholars (Undergraduate and Graduate)
- Tylenol Scholarship (Undergraduate and Graduate)
- ASHA's Student Ethics Essay Award
- CAPCSD Scholarship Opportunities (Graduate and Ph.D.)
Fellowships:
- National Institutes of Health (NIH): Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA; for Pre- and Post- Doctoral Fellowships, see section on "Individual Fellowships")
- National Science Foundation (NSF): Graduate Research Fellowships
- American Academy of Audiology (AAA): Student Summer Research Fellowship
- Acoustical Society of American Fellowships in Acoustics and Phonetics
- Spencer Foundation Dissertation Fellowships
- Josephine de Karman Fellowship Trust
External Resources
American Academy of Audiology
Acoustical Society of America
- Funding Resources
- The Frederick V. Hunt Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Acoustics
- Raymond H. Stetson Scholarship in Phonetics and Speech Science
- Robert W. Young Award for Undergraduate Student Research in Acoustics
- The Robert Bradford Newman Student Award Fund - Newman Medals and Schultz Grants
- Congressional Science and Engineering Fellowship
- Research Grant in Speech Science, Awarded by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Foundation
Med Travelers
National Institute of Health
- National Institutes of Health (NIH): Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA; for Pre- and Post- Doctoral Fellowships, see section on "Individual Fellowships")
External Student Research Grants/Awards
- American Academy of Audiology (AAA) Research Awards (Graduate)
- American Speech-Language-Hearing Foundation Research Award (Graduate)
- Cosmo Club Foundation's Program of Grants-in-Aid to Young Scholars (Graduate)
- Workforce Shortage Student Assistance Grant Program