Funding for History Graduate Students

Funding support is an essential part of any History graduate program.  Our department is committed to supporting its students with assistantships, fellowships, travel and research awards, summer work opportunities, and public history employment.

Generally, the department seeks to fund its MA students for two years and its PhD students for five to six years.  The base package includes an annual stipend of about $16,500, a full tuition waiver, and coverage of the student health fee.  Some students are also awarded additional funding of $2,000 to $5,000 per year in the form of a Robert Lipman Fellowship or an award from the College of Arts Sciences. 

Students who have passed the PhD qualifying examinations are eligible to apply for the Kentucky Historical Society’s Graduate Editorial Assistantship, which is an eleven-month appointment with a stipend of $18,000 to $20,000 a year.  They are also eligible for various dissertation fellowships which are intended to support the research and writing of the doctoral dissertation.  

The department encourages its students to participate in professional meetings and conferences and expects its doctoral students to engage in extensive research for the dissertation.  It supports these aims with internal and external travel and research awards.  These are available on a competitive basis, but they are distributed widely. 

Departmental Grants and Awards include:

Albisetti Dissertation Research Fellowship for students conducting research outside of the U.S.
Daniel Crowe-Leslee Gilbert Fellowship
Mary Wilma Hargreaves Fellowship
Dorothy Leathers and George C. Herring Fellowship
Robert S. Lipman Graduate Fellowship in History
Charles Roland Fellowship for students working in U.S. history