Financial Aid

Teaching Assistantships

Most graduate students are supported by teaching assistantships.  These are half-time positions requiring 20 hours per week.  Beginning students usually teach recitation sections supplementing large lectures of calculus, but may also teach two 3-hour,or one 5-hour, College Algebra course.  More advanced students may teach a variety of other courses.  The current stipend is $10,700 for a 9-month appointment.  The assistantship includes a full tuition waiver.  Summer support is also avaliable for some graduate students. 

International Students are expected to be proficient in spoken English to be awarded an assistantship.   Applicants taking the internet-based TOEFL should also take the speaking section; a score of 26 will demostrate English proficiency.  Alternatively, international students may take the university's Spoken Language Proficiency Test (SLPT) after they are admitted; it is expected that the student will pass this exam within one year to maintain continued financial support.

Doctoral Fellowships

The University offers two prestigious doctoral fellowships, the Distinguished Doctoral Fellowship (DDF) and the Doctoral Academy Fellowship (DAF). Both are 12-month appointments, providing support for up to 4 years, and supplement the teaching assistantship by an additional $20,000 (DDF) and $10,000 (DAF). For the first year of study, students in our department awarded the DDF have no teaching duties, while the duties are halved for the DAF. To be eligible, applicants to the doctoral program should satisfy the minimum requirements:

• GRE writing score of 5.0
• combined GRE score of 1200 (1300 for the DDF)
• undergraduate GPA of 3.5 or graduate GPA of 3.65 (GPA 3.8 for the DDF in either case). 

All applicants meeting these requirements will be considered for nomination.