Department Funding

Financial support comes in three basic forms:

• Department fellowship: If you are admitted with a fellowship, you are supported by the department during your first semester.
• Research assistantship (RA): You are paid to work for a faculty member in a research lab.
• Teaching assistantship (TA): You are paid in order to help support a course, for example running lab sections, grading homework, and doing office hours.
  • Electrical & Computer Engineering TA Application
  • Kahlert School of Computing TA Application
  • Mechanical Engineering TA Application
  • International TA Training Program (required for non-native English speaking students hired as TAs)

Full RA or TA support requires 20 hours a week of effort. Full RA and TA students are eligible for a tuition waiver called Tuition Benefit. The Tuition Benefit will cover full tuition & mandatory fees (differential tuition is not included), which can be as much as $32k per year, assuming 12 credits per semester at the non-resident rate. Each semester, enrolled students will be required to submit a form to register for the Tuition Benefits Program (TBP).  You must be accepted to the Ph.D. or Masters program to qualify. The Robotics Graduate Student Coordinator will send out this form about a month prior to the start of the semester.

PhD students in the Robotics PhD program may receive financial support while they are in the program, conditional on good progress. Refer to departmental specific funding guidelines:

MS students have the opportunity to apply for teaching assistantships with the departments, or approach individual faculty members about research assistantships. Typically a thesis master’s student will receive some type of funding from their faculty supervisor. Funding is typically not available for students completing a non-thesis master’s, but they can still apply for TA positions and approach faculty about RA positions and some may be available.