Funding
Financial Aid
Our full-time graduate students are supported through teaching assistantships, research assistantships, and fellowships. Summer funding opportunities include internships, teaching positions, or department scholarships. In addition, we strongly encourage and financially support the participation of our students in summer workshops and the presentation of their research articles at professional meetings. Graduate teaching assistantships for first-year students in the math department earn a stipend of $19,594 per academic year, which covers 100% of tuition. In addition, thanks to the generosity of friends and alumni of the Department of Mathematics, we offer summer support to PhD students who have passed their PhD qualifying exams (approximately $3,444 each summer for three years).
Additional funding opportunities:
The Madison and Lila Self Graduate Fellowship
The mission of the Self Graduate Fellowship is to identify, recruit, and provide development opportunities for exceptional Ph.D. students who demonstrate the promise to make significant contributions to their fields of study and society as a whole. The Department of Mathematics selects nominees for the Self Graduate Fellowship based on both academic excellence and leadership potential. Fellows receive a stipend of $36,000 each year for four years, access to a $5,500 professional development award, a $5,000 start-up award, plus tuition, fees and health insurance costs. If you meet the fellowship eligibility, contact Prof. Geng Chen, Graduate Admissions Director. The program is limited to US citizens.
Dean’s Doctoral Fellowships
The fellowship is to be awarded to one incoming doctoral student in Mathematics. It is a five-year fellowship with the first and fifth year Graduate Research Assistant (GRA) appointments and Graduate Teaching Assistant (GTA) appointments during the years 2, 3. Fellows receive a stipend (ranging between $20,000-$27,500) plus resident rate tuition and required fees for up to five years of doctoral study.
University Graduate Fellowships
The Department of Mathematics hopes to award a First-Year University Graduate Fellowship to an incoming, domestic doctoral student from an underrepresented group this coming Fall. The goal of the University Graduate Fellowships is to prepare doctoral students as innovators and leaders who are ready to meet the demands of the academy and our global society. The University Graduate Fellow will receive a one-year appointment as a Graduate Research Assistant, with no teaching responsibilities, and receive a stipend of $26,000 plus tuition and fees. We expect to support the Fellow as a Graduate Teaching Assistant starting in his or her second year in the program.
Sloan Indigenous Graduate Partnership
In August 2022, a joint project between KU and the Haskell Indian Nations University received a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s Indigenous Graduate Partnership. This project will support Indigenous students pursuing STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) degrees. The project aims to increase the number of Indigenous students—American Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders—attaining graduate and undergraduate degrees in STEM fields. The grant will fund 4 Master's students and 3 PhDs. The first cohort will begin in Fall 2023.