Financial Support

Prospective students are admitted with a five-funding guarantee consisting of single- or multi-year fellowships and appointments as Teaching Assistants (TAs) and/or Graduate Student Researchers (GSRs). Visit the Graduate Fellowships website through the Graduate Division for more detailed information about available multi-year fellowships for incoming students.

The RLL program offers discretionary monies that can be used for support of graduate students targeting summer work around language learning, research projects (domestic and/or abroad), and other professionalization.

At some point in graduate school, all students fulfill at least a one-year appointment as a Teaching Assistant (TA). Teaching provides crucial professional training through pedagogical seminars and classroom experience. Students in RLL are typically offered teaching appointments in their Host department. Students who are qualified to teach more than one of the Romance languages may request appointments in additional language departments affiliated with RLL at some point in their residence at the institution. Teaching includes courses in the elementary and intermediate language sequence in each department, as well as Reading and Composition (R&C) courses taught in English (and designed by each TA) that satisfy the undergraduate R&C requirement. For qualified students, contingent upon course availability, TAs may also teach content courses in Literature, Culture, and Linguistics during the academic year (fall and spring) and summer. According to the most recent TA contract, registration fees are waived during the time of appointment as a TA (with the exception of non-resident tuition for students who have not achieved California residency or are international students who have not advanced to doctoral candidacy after having completed their Qualifying Examinations).

All students who advance to candidacy in a timely manner (in RLL, this means successfully completing the PhD Qualifying Exam within 4 years of beginning the program), and who have a satisfactory academic progress report qualify for the Graduate Division’s Doctoral Completion Fellowship (DCF) program which provides a full year of support. Students who entered RLL in or after Fall 2010 and advance to doctoral candidacy within normative time are eligible for the DCF, which provides a high-value stipend and covers all fees for two semesters that do not need to be consecutive (e.g., fall then spring; spring then fall). Normative time to candidacy is eight semesters. Students may elect to take the DCF provided they have a satisfactory Academic Progress Report on file for the most recent year after being advanced to candidacy; the last year they can take the DCF is “Normative Time to Degree plus one year,” which is the 6th year of the program in RLL (NTD= 5+1).