Funding

Doctoral students who matriculate in Summer 2020 and after will be guaranteed to have funding support from the University of Chicago, external sources, or a combination of the two for the duration of their program to include the following:

  • Full tuition coverage
  • Annual stipend
  • Annual premiums for the University Student Health Insurance Program (U-SHIP)
  • Graduate student services fee

Additional fellowships and awards are available to support language study, conference attendance, and research travel.
 

Breakdown of Funding

Cinema and Media Studies PhD students who matriculate in Autumn 2023 will receive a stipend of $37,000. Stipends are distributed in monthly installments. Yearly renewal of this award is contingent on satisfactory academic progress.

For more information on financial aid for prospective students matriculating in Autumn 2023, please refer to the Financial Aid for Prospective Students and Division of the Humanities Financial Aid pages.
 

Fellowships and Grants

CMS strongly supports students applying for additional external and internal fellowships and grants. In recent years our students have received support from the following sources:

  • Mellon Humanities Dissertation Completion Fellowship
  • Franke Institute for the Humanities Dissertation Completion Fellowship
  • Center for East Asian Studies (CEAS) Toyota dissertation Fellowship
  • Hanna Holborn Gray Fellowship
  • Nicholson Center for British Studies Graduate Research Grants
  • Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship (FLAS)
  • Stuart Tave Teaching Fellowship
  • German American Academic Exchange Fellowship (DAAD)
  • Humanities Division Research Grants

All students are encouraged to take advantage of the fellowship support resources available through UChicagoGrad -- in addition to helping with research statements and CVs, UChicagoGRAD manages many external fellowship programs, including the Fulbright programs, FLAS, and DAAD grants. They maintain an extensive fellowships database, and are available for individual meetings with students. 

Students who receive Dissertation Completion Fellowships for their sixth year from the Humanities Division are eligible for a two-year Humanities Teaching Fellowship if all requirements are met. All students who are on-track to graduate within seven years of matriculation are eligible to apply.  

The Division of the Humanities administers a number internal fellowships. Many of these internal fellowship applications must be formally nominated by the student’s department, so interested students must also be aware of the CMS-specific deadlines and procedures. Fellowship announcements are distributed via the CMS graduate student list-serv.