Unlocking Financial Support: Tufts University's Graduate Financial Assistance Opportunities and Beyond

Navigating the financial landscape of graduate education can present complex challenges, fraught with obstacles that can daunt over even the most determined students. Pursuing an advanced degree comes with a unique set of financial considerations, ranging from tuition fees and living expenses, to the costs associated with research, materials, and travel.  

For many, these expenses represent significant barriers, turning the dream of furthering their education into a meticulous balancing act of assistantships, scholarships, fellowships, loans, and part-time employment. This multifaceted financial journey requires careful planning, informed decision-making, and often, a proactive approach to seeking out opportunities.  

Beyond the individual level, it reflects a broader systemic issue within higher education, emphasizing the need for more accessible, transparent, and supportive financial resources to guide graduate students. Personally, it took me far too long to learn about all the opportunities I have listed in this post. I would have loved to be provided with this information from the day I entered the program! While I may not have the power to overhaul the systemic barriers in graduate education funding, I hope that this blog post cuts through the complexity, offering you a compilation of resources that can make your academic journey more accessible and less financially daunting.

Research and Teaching Assistantships  

For many Tufts graduate students, assistantships are the most significant form of financial support and are often how you earn your stipend. Assistantships offer graduate students the opportunity to gain valuable teaching or research experience as well as prepare them for future careers in academia, industry, or public service. In my experience as a PhD student, I was offered a research assistantship that required 20 hours of research hours to support projects in the research lab of my advisor. However, others in my program were offered a teaching assistantship, or a research and teaching assistantship with time split up equally between the two.  

Speaking with your advisor and/or department can be helpful to better understand what opportunities are available to you. Additionally, you can visit the Tufts website to learn more about research and teaching assistantships in general and access further resources. 

Publication, Research, and Travel Funding 

This section will showcase grants and travel funding opportunities through Tufts, allowing students to pursue research projects, attend conferences, and gain exposure to academic and professional networks.  

Graduate Student Open Access Publishing Fund

The Tisch Library Open Access Publishing Fund provides financial support to authors who want to publish their work in open access journals. Reimbursement will cover 100% of the open access author fees in fully open access journals up to $3,000, or up to $5,000 for an open access monograph or book chapter. However, it will not cover any of the standard publication fees that may arise (e.g., cost of reprints, color illustration fees, web hosting for self-archiving). Lastly, students are limited to receiving it only once per year. 

Graduate Student Research Competition

Tufts Graduate Student Research Competition (GSRC) provides up to $1,000 in funding for expenses including equipment, materials, and supplies; research participant compensation; and expenses of travel to conduct research. This requires an application with many components (e.g., abstract, project prospectus, itemized budget, support letter from advisor), and students are limited to receiving it only once per year. 

Graduate Student Conference Fund

Funding is available for graduate students to travel to, present at, or attend  a conference or professional meeting, and students are limited to receiving it yearly. . However, your level of involvement influences the amount.  Presenters can receive up to $600, while attendees receive up to $300.  This requires a quick, simple application to be completed with information on the conference you are attending, proof of attendance, and receipts for the expenses to be reimbursed. 

Graduate Travel Support Program

Whether you are traveling to present research or to conduct research, you can also apply to the provost-funded program to cover the airfare. This can be applied for in conjunction with the above Graduate Student Travel Fund. However, this option is unlikely to be awarded to students more than once during the entirety of their graduate program, given the program’s limited resources.  

For department-specific fellowships opportunities, be sure to visit the funding opportunities page of the Tufts website. 

Professional Development Fellowships 

This section will present Tufts fellowship opportunities that provide students professional development skills towards their future careers.  

Community Fellows Program

The Community Fellows program is an academic year long leadership experience to provide fellows with transferrable work experience to aid their future careers in diversity/inclusion/equity fields. Fellows have the opportunity to create, implement, and engage in a variety of diversity/inclusion/equity activities to develop a robust and inclusive community for historically marginalized students across the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Students receive a taxable $4,000 stipend each semester for participating in the program. 

Graduate Institute for Teaching (GIFT)

The GIFT program is a two-phase program designed to prepare graduate students for an academic career in university-level teaching. Phase One includes a three-week summer program on pedagogy at the end of May and beginning of June. Phase Two takes place in either the fall or spring semester when teaching fellows co-teach a course with a Tufts faculty mentor. Students receive a taxable $2,000 stipend for participation in the program. 

Graduate Leadership in Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity (GLIDE)

The GLIDE program is a two-phase program designed to give graduate students the knowledge and tools to become effective change agents for diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace. Phase One includes a week long summer program in August, and Phase Two includes a practicum project that students work on individually or in groups from September through November. They present in December. Students receive a taxable $1,000 stipend for participating in the program. The program is open to all graduate students in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

Graduate Research Excellence at Tufts (GREAT)

The Graduate Research Excellence at Tufts (GREAT) program is a two-and-a-half-week summer program from the end of May to the beginning of June that teaches research, communication, career, and computation skills. Students receive a taxable $500 stipend and three-course credits for participating in the program. 

External Fellowships and Awards 

This section will spotlight the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program and helpful databases that students can use to search for external fellowships and awards to aid their graduate student journey.  

NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP)

With countless external fellowships available, I want to highlight the NSF GRFP, renowned as one of the oldest and most sought-after in STEM and related fields. This fellowship offers significant benefits, including a three-year annual stipend of $37,000, a $16,000 cost of education allowance for tuition and fees (paid directly to the institution), and access to professional development opportunities for NSF-supported graduate students. Personally, I've applied for this fellowship within the Psychology discipline and actively mentor my peers through the application process. I wholeheartedly recommend it!

Helpful Databases:

• ProFellow: This is my personal pick and the database I most often recommend! The ProFellow database includes more than 2,600 funding awards for everything from Fully Funded Master's & PhD Programs, Doctoral Fellowships, Master's Fellowships, Summer Fellowships, Post-doctoral Fellowships (for PhD holders)  to a diverse array of Professional Fellowships at every career stage. 
• Office of the Vice Provost for Research's Funding Opportunity Databases: The Office of the Vice Provost for Research at Tufts provides valuable databases to aid in locating opportunities for research funding. 
• Office of Scholar Development Listings: The database hosted by Tufts' Office of Scholar Development encompasses a variety of funding avenues such as fellowships, travel grants, and other financial resources.
• Office of Corporate & Foundation Relations Funding Database: The Office of Corporate & Foundation Relations at Tufts has created a curated, searchable database designed to help identify private funding support opportunities.
• UCLA's GRAPES Database: This database offers a comprehensive array of funding opportunities spanning various fields, catering to graduate study, research endeavors, and beyond. 

In closing, my aim is for you to feel empowered and confident in navigating assistantships, research grants, and external fellowships. By illuminating these avenues, I hope you feel equipped to make informed choices about your financial future. Remember, countless opportunities await, so don’t hesitate to seize them!