The University of Connecticut offers a variety of financial aid options to support students along their doctoral journey, in addition to state and federal assistance. You can learn more by contacting UConn's One Stop Student Services at 860-486-1111 or onestop@uconn.edu (please include your student ID number or Applicant ID number in your email message).

Most doctoral students support their graduate study through graduate assistantships, which can involve teaching (teaching assistantships) and/or research (research assistantships). In fact, in the 2022-2023 academic year all Ph.D. students at the Neag School who were eligible for assistantships received one. Assistantships of 10 hours per week (the equivalent of teaching one class a semester) or more provide a full tuition waiver, a stipend, and benefits (e.g., highly subsidized health care insurance). The UConn Graduate Employee & Postdoc Union is a helpful source of information regarding work rules and compensation for such positions and their associated benefits.

Teaching Assistantships

Teaching Assistantships can involve having sole responsibility for a class or supporting a faculty member who is teaching a large class. Teaching an undergraduate course requires having a master’s degree; teaching an MA/MS course requires having a Ph.D. or equivalent, relevant experience. These assistantships are assigned and overseen by the department in which the course is offered. For more information about teaching assistantship possibilities, speak to your advisor or department chair.

Research Assistantships

Many doctoral students are hired to work on faculty research projects that are funded by outside agencies or internal UConn grants. While many times faculty have their advisees work with them on projects, there are opportunities for students to seek projects with other faculty. Because outside agencies award grants on a rolling basis, it pays to be proactive in seeking out such opportunities. Speaking to faculty who do research that is relevant to your experience and interests is important, as is consulting with your advisor about any grants of which they are aware and would be a good fit for your interests. Open positions are sometimes posted in the Neag Student News, so it is also a good idea to read that regularly.

Students must indicate interest in being considered for these fellowships when applying to a graduate program.

The Jorgensen Fellowship (JF) and the Harriott Fellowship (HF) are university-wide fellowships available to outstanding young scholars admitted to doctoral programs at the University of Connecticut. These fellowships are intended to recruit and support the most promising students entering graduate programs at the University of Connecticut. Recipients of these fellowships will represent the very best applicants to graduate programs at the University. In addition, to be eligible for either the HF fellowship, applicants must demonstrate a commitment to enhancing diversity in higher education and/or a commitment to enhancing diversity in their field of study.

Learn more on the Graduate School's website.

There are a number of small internal scholarships available that can provide funding for incidental expenses, such as fees, books, etc. Applications are invited every January.

In Fall 2020, UConn’s Neag School of Education was selected to join the more than 50 higher education institutions nationwide currently sponsoring the Holmes Scholars Program. The Neag School has pledged to cover the costs of sending each of its Holmes Scholars to the AACTE’s annual conference, as well as the two-day pre-conference exclusive to Holmes Scholars, for a minimum of three years. In addition, Holmes Scholars are funded to attend AACTE's Washington Week one time.

Established in 1991 by the Holmes Group and supported by the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE), the Holmes Scholars Program seeks to provide mentorship, peer support, professional development, and rich scholarly experiences to students from racially and ethnically diverse backgrounds who are pursuing graduate degrees in education at AACTE member institutions. Since its inception, more than 700 Holmes Scholars have benefited from taking part in the program.

In an effort to support graduate student dissertations with a human rights focus at UConn, the Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute funds at least one dissertation research fellowship and at least one dissertation writing fellowship of up to $5,000 each. The purpose of the research fellowship is to support primary research activities, including but not limited to: archival research, participant observation, interview, data collection, data set construction, ethnography, textual criticism, digital archiving, and historical preservation. The writing fellowship should be used to support the student during the time in which a majority of the dissertation is expected to be written.

This competitive award was established through the UConn Foundation by UConn alumna Dr. Kathy Gavin ’97 Ph.D., a retired associate professor in residence in mathematics, providing funding to doctoral students who are engaged in dissertation research and who have successfully defended their dissertation proposals, with the expectation that recipients anticipate defending their dissertation by end of the academic year. The award may be used to support anticipated dissertation research expenses.

The Spencer/NAE Dissertation Fellowship Program seeks to encourage a new generation of scholars from a wide range of disciplines and professional fields to undertake research relevant to the improvement of education. These $27,500 fellowships support individuals whose dissertations show potential for bringing fresh and constructive perspectives to the history, theory, analysis, or practice of formal or informal education anywhere in the world. This highly competitive program aims to identify the most talented researchers conducting dissertation research related to education.

The purpose of the American Dissertation Fellowship is to offset a scholar’s living expenses while she completes her dissertation. The fellowship must be used for the final year of writing the dissertation. Applicants must have completed all coursework, passed all preliminary examinations, and received approval for their research proposals or plans by the preceding November. Students holding fellowships for writing a dissertation in the year prior to the AAUW fellowships year are not eligible. Open to applicants in all fields of study. Scholars engaged in science, technology, engineering and math fields or those researching gender issues are especially encouraged to apply.

The AERA Minority Dissertation Fellowship in Education Research is open to U.S. citizens and permanent residents who are members of racial and ethnic groups historically underrepresented in higher education (e.g., African Americans, Alaskan Natives, American Indians, Asian Americans, Hispanics or Latinos, and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islanders). Applicants can come from graduate programs and departments in education research, the humanities, or social or behavioral science disciplinary or interdisciplinary fields, such as economics, history, political science, psychology, public policy, or sociology. Eligible graduate students will be at the writing stage of their dissertation by the beginning of the fellowship. Fellows are required to provide proof of advancement to candidacy at the beginning of the award period. Applicants must work full-time on their dissertations and course requirements.