Skip to main content

Funding

Additional Funding-related Information

Before downloading or assisting students with any information related to fellowships, scholarships, Traineeships, or assistantships, academic program staff should become familiar with the following documents. These pertain to all recipients of any type of University assistance and are available on the Regulations and Guidelines for All Recipients of University Assistance.

Questions?

If you have additional questions email TGS.

Get instructions for the Research Assistant Scholarship 

Funding Entry Information

Funding Guidelines for Programs

Additional information can be found on the Funding FAQ.

  • When admitting students into TGS PhD programs, programs are responsible for following standard TGS funding practices and may not create their own policies/practices that are detrimental to students.

  • Programs may decide to use non-TGS funds to provide extra funding to students, but they may not provide less than the minimum TGS levels of support.

  • Programs/advisors are expected to provide at least 5 years of support (20 quarters) including summers. The support may be a combination of TGS funds, department or school funds, other non-TGS funds, and/or external funding such as grants and external fellowships.

  • Programs may not withhold funding from active students for failure to meet milestones or other requirements, or because the advisor has insufficient funds. Programs may not force students to “take a quarter off” in order to avoid funding them.

  • TGS does not automatically provide tuition scholarships for students funded on non-TGS institutional funding (e.g., appropriated, discretionary, gifts, endowments). Programs/advisors should plan to cover the tuition as well as the stipend.

  • Programs cannot admit students as “self-pay” meaning they do not provide funding, even if the student states that they are OK with paying out-of-pocket.

  • The only times when funding is not provided are in the following situations:

    • Approved unpaid leave.

    • With approval from their advisor, the student voluntarily accepts a paid internship away from campus and does not require funding from Northwestern.

    • A student leaves the program (graduates, withdraws, is excluded or is suspended).

    • A student has full external funding at or above the minimum levels set by TGS.

    • With approval from their advisor, a student voluntarily takes the summer off and does not register for classes (for vacation, personal reasons, etc.). Students are expected to attend year-round so this should be an exception rather than the rule.

    • A student is in their 6th year or beyond, has no student banked quarters (humanities and social sciences) and no longer has any funding available through Northwestern.

      • It is OK for students to continue to be funded on grants/external fellowships beyond the 5th year, but not on TGS quarters (other than banked quarters in the 6th year).