Graduate Student Funding

Anticipated Expenses for graduate studies for the nine-month academic year as established by UCLA's Financial Aid office can be found at (http://www.fao.ucla.edu/fao_information_costs.htm).
Actual living expenses will depend on personal circumstances. The following is an annual sample budget for students living off-campus: 2007-08 (subject to change)

Room and Board: $17,889
Books and Supplies: $1,836
Transportation: $2,424
Personal: $2,463
Registration fees (including health insurance): $8,967.50 for residents; $9,261.50 for non-residents
Tuition:  $14,694
A breakdown of up to date fee and tuition costs can be found at http://www.registrar.ucla.edu/fees/.   

FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES 

UCLA has various funding opportunities and almost all admitted PhD sociology students obtain competitive funding packages depending on their merit and progress in the program. The main funding opportunities are graduate division fellowships, departmental fellowships, and extramural funding.  For incoming students by far the largest source of support comes in the offers of one or multiple years of support that the Department makes to admitted students.  Some of these funds originate from sources outside the Department, but are controlled by the Department.   

Graduate Division Fellowship Programs and Support from UCLA Centers 

There are a number of campus-wide fellowship programs, e.g., the Eugene Cota Robles Fellowship, Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) fellowships for which the department can nominate admitted students if you apply and meet the eligibility criteria. To apply for campus-wide awards, submit the Fellowship Application for Entering Graduate Students directly to our department by December 15 OR complete the fellowship section of your online graduate admissions application. For FLAS fellowships include a language reference letter in your application package.  For the Eugene Cota-Robles Award you must also submit the Diversity Fellowship Supplemental Application to the department.  Please note that the Sociology Department cannot nominate applicants for the Graduate Opportunity Fellowship Program (GOFPA list of the Graduate Division programs and the fellowship application form can be found at http://www.gdnet.ucla.edu/asis/entsup/finsup.htm.    Note that for most of these awards recommendation by the Department is critical, and the Department reserves the right to consider these awards that originate from other places on campus as part of the total award package that we are offering, fully subject to our rules and conditions.  

Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowships (FLAS) for the academic year or summer awards only are available for the following languages:  Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, and Korean (East Asia); Spanish, Portuguese, and Quechua (Latin America); Arabic, Armenian, Hebrew, Persian, and Turkish (Middle East); Indonesian, Tagalog, Thai, and Vietnamese (Southeast Asia).  For additional information and requirements specific to each area program please consult the website at http://www.international.ucla.edu/funding/.  This site also lists a number of other funding opportunities for international studies.

Departmental Support

The department's Admissions and Awards Committee will consider all admitted applicants, U.S. citizens, permanent residents, and international students--for departmental support (stipends, registration fees, nonresident tuition, assistantships) at the time of admission.  Decisions are made based on merit, i.e., the applicant's strength of record and promise in relation to the other students, and not on financial need.  Completion of a fellowship application for departmental support is not required.

Many, and in recent years all of our admitted students, have received an offer for financial support from the department.  Our typical award offers have provided five years of guaranteed support which included one or two years of fellowship (stipend, registration fees, and nonresident tuition for the first year if needed) and three or four years of guaranteed assistantships at varying levels of support.  Stipends have ranged from $15,000-21,000 in 2007-08 and are ordinarily scheduled for the first and fifth year.  In rare instances first-year students who have already had teaching experience could be offered a teaching assistantship.   

For each year of guaranteed assistantship support (typically year 2-4), the department will offer a teaching assistantship at 50% (20 hours per week). If a faculty member offers a Graduate Student Researcher (GSR) position for one or all of these years the GSRship will satisfy/replace the departmental support commitment.  TA salaries start at $16,391 for a nine-month, half-time appointment (2007-08). GSR hourly rates range from $15.53 to $30.44 (2007-08) hour depending on experience.  Under certain circumstances, TAs and GSRs qualify to have a portion of their mandatory registration fees (including medical insurance premium) paid by the University and in more limited circumstances, GSRs may qualify to have 100% of non-resident tuition paid.  For more information on UCLA's academic apprentice personnel positions, salary rates, remission rates, and policies go to http://www.gdnet.ucla.edu/publications.asp and read the entries for Academic Apprentice Personnel.  

Extramural Funding 

There are many extramural agencies that provide fellowships for graduate students.

We strongly urge our applicants and continuing students to research external funding opportunities and apply for every fellowship for which they are eligible.

The UCLA Graduate Division has an on-line database of extramural funding opportunities called GRAPES available at: http://www.gdnet.ucla.edu/grpinst.htm.  The GRAPES database catalogs over 500 private and publicly funded awards, fellowships, and internships and allows searches by field, academic level, award type, award amount, and other criteria.  In addition, there are directories of extramural support that can be found at most university libraries.  You can find a list of these directories at
http://www.gdnet.ucla.edu/asis/entsup/extramrl.htm.

Here are some of the best-known nation-wide programs of which some are specifically for entering students: 

American Sociological Association Minority Fellowship Program: http://www.asanet.org/cs/root/leftnav/funding/minority_fellowship_program
Last year the deadline was in January.
Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship Program for Minorities.  http://www7.nationalacademies.org/fordfellowships/fordpredoc.html
Last year the deadline was in November. 
Fulbright U.S. Student Program (IIE)
http://www.fulbrightonline.org/us
UCLA campus application deadline is in September.  For exact date please contact fhu@gdnet.ucla.edu.
Jacob K. Javits Fellowship Program at the Department of Education http://www.ed.gov/programs/jacobjavits/index.html
Check their web site for deadlines.  Application deadline is generally in early October.
National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship
https://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/grfp/
http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2004/nsf04615/nsf04615.htm
Check their web site for deadlines.  Application deadline for social sciences is generally in early November.
The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans
http://www.pdsoros.org/fullapp.pdf
Application deadline is November 1.
The Social Science Resource Council
http://fellowships.ssrc.org/overview/ 

Need-Based Financial Aid

Support based solely on financial need is provided in the form of work-study and loans through the Financial Aid Office and is available only to U.S. citizens and permanent residents.  To apply for financial aid, submit the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) to the Department of Education by March 2nd.  For more information on applying for need-based support at UCLA, please refer to the web site maintained by the Financial Aid Office at www.fao.ucla.edu.