Financial Aid

Financial Aid Offered by the English Department

Teaching Assistantships

Teaching assistants teach one section of English 401 (First-Year Writing) each semester while taking two graduate courses. There is a stipend and a full tuition waiver. Students in all academic year programs are eligible to apply. Students who apply for a teaching assistantship must submit the Department Application for Financial Aid along with an expository writing sample – a critical or term paper written for an English course – to help with the selection process. Students awarded teaching assistantships will take ENGL 910, The Teaching of Writing, in their first semester at UNH. Assistantships are awarded only to students who are enrolled in full-time coursework. Ph.D. and M.F.A. students do not continue to receive an assistantship during the period in which they have finished coursework but are writing their dissertation or thesis. In other words, Ph.D. students hold a teaching assistantship for the first four or five years and M.F.A students hold it for up to two and a half years. A number of summer grants are available to students who have held teaching assistantships during the previous academic year

In some cases, after a student's first year as a teaching assistant, he or she may be assigned to teach a class other than 401. All teaching assistants will be assigned a faculty mentor even if you have taught a similar course at another institution. (Each time you teach a new course – as opposed to repeating a course you have already taught – you will be assigned a faculty mentor). The purpose of faculty mentoring is to provide the teaching assistant guidance from a seasoned teacher of the course. Your faculty mentor will aid you in the planning of the course, offer guidance and support during the semester, observe your teaching, read your course evaluations and discuss them with you, and write a detailed letter about your teaching. This letter will be a valuable part of your job application dossier. For more information, see the Graduate Director. Assignment of faculty mentors occurs in the middle of the semester before you will be teaching.

Tuition scholarships provide either a full or half tuition waiver for the academic year (though not a waiver of student fees). Students receiving tuition scholarships must be full-time students in the English graduate program. Full-time students in all programs are eligible to apply. The number of tuition scholarships available to masters students is limited. You can apply for this scholarship using the Department Application for Financial Aid.

Only full-time, unmarried students in the M.F.A. in Writing program are eligible to apply. Amount of scholarship varies each academic year. 

We award a number of prizes and awards annually.

Current  Students

Financial aid awards are made in the fall semester.  The application deadline for current students is February 15^th. Notices will be sent to all students well before the deadline for application. The number of awards available varies widely from semester to semester. Awards are made by the Graduate Committee in consultation with the graduate faculty. The primary criterion is academic achievement.

If you are offered an award, you will receive a written offer detailing the nature and conditions of the award. 

New Applicants

New applicants are typically eligible for departmental financial aid beginning in the fall semester. The deadline for applying is January 15^th. To apply for departmental financial aid students must complete a Department Application for Financial Aid and have submitted a completed application to the Graduate School by the deadline.

Student wishing to apply for federal loans or for other loans and grants not administered by the English department should contact the Financial Aid Office at (603) 862-3600.

Other forms of financial aid – research assistantships, work-study, etc. – occasionally become available. See the Graduate Program Director for more details.

The English department's policy is not to offer admission to the doctoral program without an award of financial aid (although a student may decide not to accept the award for a variety of reasons, such as continuing employment elsewhere). Thus all Ph.D. applicants, with the possible exception of non-native speakers (see below), are required to apply for the teaching assistantship, and the deadlines for the two applications coincide, on Jan. 15. Other sources of aid include the Summer Teaching Assistantship and Dissertation Year Fellowships. Both are awarded by the Graduate School.

Given the continuing availability of financial aid, the department is committed to funding doctoral students during their first four years of academic work. Funding normally consists of the teaching assistantship, which requires full-time status. However, for non-native speakers, funding may consist of a tuition waiver only (since by departmental policy non-native speakers are normally ineligible to teach English 401 in their first year). The tuition waiver also requires full-time status. After a student has completed four years of academic work, the department will support his or her application for additional sources of aid. Such sources might include the dissertation year fellowship, a fifth-year teaching assistantship, or a per-course adjunct position.

The M.S.T. program offers no financial aid. However, many participants receive some aid from their local schools.