Financial Aid

The department offers a number of graduate assistantships to well-qualified students. These assistantships require 20 hours of work each week during the semester and generally carry a stipend of approximately $9,000 for the academic year, plus a tuition scholarship. Students receiving assistantships must register for a full graduate course load. This constitutes a minimum of nine hours. In addition to departmental assistantships, a number of graduate assistantships in other programs are offered each year.

The department makes an effort to help all full-time students find assistantship support for up to a maximum of four years. The department limits its own assistantships to a two-year term. Because the department's own opportunities for support are limited, departmental assistantship appointments will be guided by the following principles:

1. Only doctoral students will be considered for departmental assistantship support.
2. The department will provide assistantship support for a maximum of two academic years.
3. The department will carefully review each graduate assistant every year and reappointment for a second year of support will depend on satisfactory work on the assistantship and satisfactory academic work.
4. The department will help qualified full-time doctoral students to obtain assistantship support elsewhere in the University once the department's own two-year tenure is expired.
5. The department will seek to have equitable mix of beginning and advanced doctoral students among its assistants. Students doing course-work will, in general, receive preference in assistantship appointment.
6. The assistantship positions will, in general, be divided among the degree programs roughly in proportion to their enrollments. Enrollments will be defined as the total graduate credit production by the program.
7. The department's own needs and priorities will be part of the allocation process. Requests for appointment and reappointment shall be submitted by announced deadlines and it is the responsibility of the assistant to ensure that all appropriate forms are completed by the deadline, March 15. Applicants interested in applying for an assistantship should complete the Graduate Assistantship Application and mail it to the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy by the deadline specified on the form.

Petitions for the reappointment of graduate assistants beyond the two-year maximum may be made to the department chair by the deadline for appointments each year and may, in extraordinary circumstances, be granted by the chair in consultation with the department executive committee.