The Graduate School provides most incoming PhD students with a minimum of four academic years and three summers of guaranteed funding. Depending on the specific school to which a student applies, the student may qualify for and be guaranteed additional support beyond candidacy. Additional assistance, and assistance to students ineligible for this funding, is available in many forms, including merit-based fellowships, scholarships, assistantships and traineeships, loans, and other support.

The Graduate School administers fellowships, scholarships, and graduate assistantships. Academic programs determine the fellowship and scholarship awardees and also recommend the awarding of graduate assistantships. Principal investigators and/or academic programs award research assistantships to students.

Graduate students are strongly encouraged to seek external funding for their research. External grants perform two vital functions. First, they supplement or extend doctoral students' funding to finance research that often forms the basis of the dissertation, and sometimes for much of a scholar's ensuing career. Additionally, awards, particularly of highly competitive, prestigious grants, demonstrate to prospective employers that a student is a serious scholar, a potentially valuable member of the academic and/or research community. For more information, see the external funding page.

Students needing additional funds to pay for their education may wish to apply for loans. Only U.S. citizens and permanent residents who are enrolled at least half-time are eligible for federal loans. There are alternative loan options for part-time students and for international students. For more information, see our student loans pages.

Eligibility for Financial Aid
To be eligible for all forms of financial aid, continuing graduate students must remain in good academic standing and demonstrate satisfactory progress toward their respective degrees. To download a copy of Northwestern University's Statement of Satisfactory Academic Progress, click here. In general, to be in good academic standing in The Graduate School, students must meet the standards set by the academic program and The Graduate School and make satisfactory progress toward fulfilling all stated requirements for the degree. A student whose overall grade average is below B, has more than one incomplete grade, or otherwise fails to make progress toward the degree in accordance with the requirements adopted by the Graduate Faculty is not considered in good standing. The definition of "satisfactory academic progress" encompasses enrollment stipulations and time limits for achieving the degree, as well as grade quality, and differs for students pursuing the master's degree as compared with those pursuing the doctorate. For complete information regarding satisfactory academic progress, please see the student services pages of this site.

Students failing to maintain satisfactory progress may be awarded federal and institutional assistance for one additional payment period to reestablish satisfactory standing. Students who do not reestablish satisfactory standing will remain ineligible for any additional federal and institutional assistance until they return to good academic standing. The Associate Dean for Student Services of The Graduate School may grant an exception to this policy after review of evidence of mitigating circumstances presented by the student.