All students admitted to the Ph.D. graduate program in Political Science receive a graduate assistantship or a fellowship for five years (contingent on normal progress through the program). All assistantships and fellowships include a monthly stipend, full tuition scholarship, and 80 percent co-payment toward the University’s health insurance policy.
Additional scholarships and fellowships are available to top students. Fellowships, provided through the department and the College of the Liberal Arts, offer a release from assistantship responsibilities. Current political science graduate students are recipients of the Bruce Miller and Dean LaVigne Fellowship, the Florence and Angelo Paterno Graduate Fellowship in the Liberal Arts, the University Graduate Fellowship, and the Bunton Waller Graduate Scholar award.
The department also facilitates graduate education in other ways through extensive financial support to:
- Present research at professional conferences
- Attend special programs in subjects crucial to the student’s program of study, such as foreign languages or advanced statistics
- Conduct dissertation research, aid includes international and domestic travel, the purchase of data sets, or time free from other assistantship duties to conduct research
- Reimburse research expenses for MA, or pre-dissertation research
- Summer grants to revise papers for publication
In addition, the department gives awards annually for outstanding performance in the graduate program, for the best master’s essay, and for teaching excellence.