We offer competitive funding opportunities for graduate students through fellowships, teaching assistantships and research assistantships. Most awards include a stipend and tuition waiver. Fees, books and materials, health insurance and housing are not covered by the waiver.
Graduate assistantships provide professional experience in teaching, tutoring or research while supporting your academic studies. Fellowship recipients typically enroll in four courses per semester, while graduate assistants generally take three.
Doctoral students also complete at least one internship semester, usually in a government or industry research laboratory. In some cases, the internship includes a salary in place of an assistantship.
You can apply for a graduate assistantship by submitting an application to gradprog@niu.edu by March 1. Applications received after that date are considered until positions are filled.
We employ about 40 graduate teaching assistants (GTAs). Most assist with lower-level mathematics courses such as college algebra, finite mathematics and business calculus.
GTAs typically work about 20 hours per week attending lectures, leading recitation sections, meeting with students, and preparing and grading assignments and quizzes.
Some GTAs work in the Statistics and Mathematics Assistance Center or serve as graders for mathematics courses, including upper-level courses. Experienced GTAs may have the opportunity to teach their own course sections for an enhanced stipend.
Read more information for graduate teaching assistants (DOCX).
Graduate research assistants (GRAs) work closely with faculty on research projects across the department.
For example, mathematics education faculty may involve GRAs in interviewing students and transcribing research data, while numerical mathematics faculty may have GRAs develop and test computer programs for research applications.
Advanced doctoral students often become active research collaborators with faculty and may continue as GRAs while completing their dissertations.
Full-time teaching and research assistantship stipends are approximately $1,325 per month for master's students and $1,700 per month for doctoral students who already hold a master's degree. Summer assistantships are also available on a competitive basis.
NIU offers competitive fellowships for outstanding master's students, doctoral students completing dissertations and underrepresented students.
Unlike assistantships, fellowships do not include work responsibilities, allowing students to focus full time on graduate study. Fellowship recipients typically enroll in four courses (12 credit hours) per semester, while graduate assistants generally enroll in three courses (nine credit hours).
Students may also use nationally competitive fellowships, such as awards from the National Science Foundation or Department of Defense, to support graduate study at NIU.
Fellowship stipends range from $7,000 to $14,500 for the academic year and may be combined with a half-time teaching assistantship.
We offer a limited number of tuition waivers for recruiting purposes and to support underrepresented students.
If you're interested in a tuition waiver, contact gradprog@niu.edu.
Registration or class questions:
Anders Linner