Undergraduate and Graduate applicants to the Department of English can apply for resources to fund their education through the Office of Student Financial Aid.
All students admitted to the graduate program are automatically considered for fellowships and teaching assistantships. All are granted financial aid, both in the first year and throughout the program, as long as they remain in good standing and make reasonable progress toward their degree. Most awards are in the form of teaching assistantships, but some fellowships are available. All awards include tuition and partial fee waivers, although students must pay some fees. Entering MA candidates can receive up to seven years of support, entering PhD candidates up to six years of support, and entering MFA candidates up to three years of support.
Teaching and Research Assistantships
Most entering MA and MFA students teach one section of composition each semester. They are given extensive preparation for this assignment, including a week-long teaching orientation before the semester begins, a semester-long seminar in the teaching of rhetoric, and mentoring by an advanced graduate student throughout the first semester of teaching.
Entering PhD students teach one section per semester in their first year, and depending on fellowship support, may teach up to two sections per semester in subsequent years. International students throughout their time in the program teach one section per semester, and hold additional RA appointments.
As students advance through the program, they have opportunities to teach literature and film classes; seminars are offered in the teaching of each. Some MFA students may teach undergraduate creative writing courses. While a few teaching assignments involve assisting in large lecture courses, most students plan and direct their own classes. They may teach introduction to poetry, fiction, and the short story; or introduction to British or American Literature or to Shakespeare. They may submit proposals for courses of their own design which are selected in competition. Recent offerings have included Arthurian Literature; Jazz and Literature; Beauty and the Beast; Different Desires: Gay and Lesbian Literature; and Big-Time Shakespeare: Twentieth-Century Adaptations.
Other assignments in later stages of the program include administrative, advising, or research assistantships (RA), an internship at the University of Illinois Press, or tutoring in the Writers Workshop. These positions carry the same stipend rates as teaching assistantships. The stipend's base rate usually increases a bit every year, and advanced students with several years of teaching experience receive an increase over the base rate.
English Proficiency Requirement for Non-Native English Speaking Teaching Assistants
The Graduate College lists the minimum scores a non-native speaker of English must have in order to be awarded a teaching assistantship. Non-native speakers of English who wish to be considered for teaching assistantships in the English department must provide evidence of spoken English language proficiency. Additional information can be found on the International Applicants page.
Fellowships
Our graduate students receive a number of fellowships, depending on their contract and the stage of the program they are in. These range from summer fellowships to Graduate College non-teaching fellowships for incoming students and dissertation completion fellowships that provide teaching releases or non-teaching stipends. Our students may also be eligible to apply for several external fellowships. For more information, see our Research Grants and Fellowships page.
Note: Fellowship stipends may be subject to income taxes; see the Graduate College for further information.
Stipends
Teaching Assistantships
- 33% time appointment - $16,125 annually (teaching one class per semester)
- 67% time appointment - $32,250 annually (teaching two classes per semester)
- International PhD students can receive a maximum of a 50% assistantship per government regulations, and should check with ISSS for additional rules. Campus minimum $24,200 annually.
The Tuition Waiver Policy governs waivers of tuition and fees associated with assistantship appointments and fellowship and traineeship appointments.
Assistants holding appointments ranging from 25 percent through 67 percent time are exempt from payment of tuition and the service fee. In addition, all waiver-generating appointments also waive the Health Service fee, the Academic Facilities Maintenance Fund Assessment (AFMFA) fee, the Library/Information Technology fee, the Service fee, the Transportation fee and the International Student fee. They also provide vision insurance, dental insurance, and 87 percent of the health insurance fee.
Waiver-generating assistantship appointments are defined as appointments ranging from 25 percent through 67 percent time (based on a forty-hour week) for three-quarters of the term, defined as the period starting on the first day of classes and ending on the last day of final examinations. Three-quarters of the term is defined for spring and fall as 91 days and as 41 days for the summer term. A teaching assistant appointment between 25 percent and 67 percent of full-time service for at least 21 days in Summer I (four-week part of Summer term) will be considered to be a waiver-generating appointment.
Assistantship stipends are taxable and taxes are withheld from monthly paychecks. The associated tuition waivers are not taxable.