Graduate Student Funding Resources

Announcements

• Start planning now for fall fellowship competitions. For a list of fellowships for Liberal Arts graduate students, see our COLA Grants Digest Special Edition on fellowships.

• Changes in federal student aid: Recent changes in the eligibility requirements for subsidized federal Stafford loans mean that graduate students will begin to accrue interest on loans while in school. While this change does not effect existing Stafford loans, it will impact loans taken out beginning July 2012. Check this U.S. News article and the UT Austin Financial Aid page for more info.

• Prepare now for National Science Foundation (NSF) Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant (DDRIG) application dates in late summer and early fall by consulting the Office of Research's NSF DDRIG Tool Kit. Find a list of deadlines relevant to Liberal Arts here.

Browse more grant opportunities in the COLA Grants Digest, updated weekly.

Developing a Strategy for External Funding

Grants are not free money. It takes a lot of work to get them, for one thing, and getting or not getting grants can have a lasting impact on your academic career. Small travel grants during your M.A. and Ph.D. coursework will help you get the big grants for your dissertation research and writing, and those dissertation grants will make you a stronger candidate on the academic job market. After you graduate, there are a number of early career opportunities available only in the first three or so years out of your Ph.D. Make a grants timeline for yourself as early as you can, and identify grants and deadlines for the different phases of your career well in advance. 

Grants for Graduate Students Workshop Handout [PDF] provides an overview of the grant-seeking process

Identifying Grant Opportunities

The best way to find grant opportunities is to stay abreast of Requests for Proposals (RFPs) in your field. Subscribe to listserves maintained by interest groups at UT and by professional organizations in your discipline. Talk to your professors and fellow graduate students about grant opportunities they've applied for (or check out their CVs). You can also check the websites below frequently (or subscribe to their email notifications) to explore new opportunities and stay up-to-date on trends in the kinds of projects funders are supporting.

• UT Graduate School www.utexas.edu/ogs/funding/external/
• American Council of Learned Societies www.acls.org
• Other universities maintain searchable databases of grants: Harvard, Chicago, Cornell, Notre Dame, UCLA and Duke
• Communities of Science Pivot platform
• Grants.gov federal grants listings
• Visit the Regional Foundation Library (see our RFL Guide for Liberal Arts grant seekers here).