Who qualifies for financial aid?
All Ph.D. students are fully funded by the department (or come in with grants or other external funding) regardless of citizenship status. We do not allow unfunded (self-supported) students at the PhD level. Fellowships and assistantships are not available to students enrolled in the MS to PhD track.. A loan program is available, however, for all graduate students who are United States citizens (International Students may be able to obtain private loans from their home country). In recent years, MS and PhD students in industrial engineering and management sciences also have been supported by numerous corporate and governmental programs offered in the United States and other countries.
Applying for financial aid
Application for financial aid is made at the same time as application for admission when you submit your online application. There is no extra form needed. Those who do so will automatically be considered for all University fellowships and assistantships for which they are eligible.
Types of financial aid
A variety of first-year fellowships, paying tuition plus a stipend for living expenses, are awarded each year to applicants whose goal is a PhD. Financial aid after the first year generally takes the form of research and teaching assistantships. Occasionally, a first-year student receives such an assistantship but these are only the PhD students. MS to PhD track students are not funded in any way. Assistantships pay a stipend together with most or all tuition and carry no restrictions of citizenship or visa status.
- Research assistants work with faculty members on specific projects, often related to their PhD dissertations.
- Teaching assistants help in undergraduate instruction.
- University Fellowships are the basic fellowship given to all PhD students
- Cabell Fellowships are limited fellowships given out by McCormick to the top applicants each year.
The IEMS Department has established a $5,000 award for an exceptional PhD student in the area of financial engineering. All applicants to the IEMS PhD program who indicate financial engineering as their intended specialization in the online application system will be considered for the award; there is no separate application. The award consists of:
- a one-time $3,000 supplement to the student's stipend, to be received after matriculation
- a $2,000 research account, granted after the first year of study, conditional on passing the IEMS candidacy exam on a paper in the area of financial engineering.
For more information please visit the Financial Engineering Website
