Funding & Fellowship Opportunities for Graduate Students
The Graduate School is dedicated to helping students secure funding during their time spent at MSU. Graduate students finance their education through a variety of assistantships, fellowships and other funding opportunities. This page provides a list of valuable resources to help ease the financial burden of graduate school and allow you to focus on your research and coursework.
Numerous external funding opportunities exist to support graduate students, and MSU’s Office of Research Development maintains an extensive collection of these resources for graduate students to explore. MSU also provides students with access to Grant Forward, an easy-to-explore research funding database with tools for personalizing the search and for setting up alerts regarding new funding opportunities in line with students' research interests. In addition to these resources, the Office of the Graduate School offers numerous internal funding opportunities to graduate students and the faculty who work with them. You can learn more about these internal funding opportunities by exploring the following drop-down menus:
MSU Internal Fellowships & Funding Opportunities
Funding opportunites from MSU are available for graduate students and faculty working with graduate students.
Overview
| Funding Program | Application Opens | Application Closes | Additional Information |
| Community Building Mini-Grant |
Fall: 1-July Spring: 1-Dec |
Fall: 15-Aug Spring: 15-Jan |
Grants to graduate-student organizations to build community and connections among graduate peers. |
| Graduate Teaching Scholarships |
Fall: 1-Aug Spring: 1-Jan |
Fall: 15th day of instruction Spring: 15th day of instruction |
This scholarship is for current MSU GTA’s. Follow link for additional eligibility information and application instructions. |
| Food Security Scholarship |
Fall: 19-July Spring: 1-Jan |
Fall: 30-Aug Spring: 15-Feb |
If you are a student with barriers to accessing enough nutritious food, please consider applying. |
| Sloan Indigenous Graduate Partnership Fellowship | See application deadlines |
Fall: 15-April Spring: October 15 |
Follow the program link for eligibility information and application instructions. |
|
Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (LSAMP) Bridge to Doctorate Scholars |
Open | Open | Follow program link for eligibility information. To initiate the application process, please follow the contact information provided on MSU’s LSAMP webpage. |
| Wellness Champion Program | Varies. See additional information. | Varies. See additional information. | Contact the Office of the Graduate School for exact yearly deadlines. Applications are for the following academic year. |
| Montana INBRE Native American Graduate Fellowship | always open; however, see priority review deadlines. |
Priority Review: Fall: 15-Feb Spring: 1-Nov |
Follow program link for eligibility guidelines and application information. |
| Dennis and Phyllis Washington Foundation Native American Graduate Fellowship | See application deadline. | February 1st for a fellowship period beginning the next academic year | Follow program link for eligibility guidelines and application information. Applicants for the Washington Fellowship need to apply through the Cat Scholarships portal. |
| PhD Dissertation Completion Awards |
Fall 2024: Oct. 15th |
Fall 2024: Nov. 15th |
All PhD students approaching their final term can apply for a PhD Dissertation Completion Award. Follow link for eligibility details and application instructions. |
| Professional Advancement Grant | Always open | Always open | These awards support travel for graduate students from any department to present scholarly research at professional conferences. Follow link for details and application. |
| AmeriCorp Alumni, Application fee and tuition waivers | Always open | Always open | Follow program link for application instructions. |
| Past McNair Scholars, Application fee and tuition waivers | Always open | Always open | Follow program link for application instructions. |
| Graduate Leadership Academy | Early April. See website for exact yearly dates. | Mid-May. See website for exact yearly dates and extended application deadline updates. | Professional leadership development program. Open to all MSU graduate students beyond their first year of study. |
| Cat Scholarships | Varies by scholarship. | Varies by scholarship. | This database references funding opportunities for more than 50 different scholarship programs created by individuals, families, and institutions on behalf of current MSU students. |
| April 1st | July 15th |
This fellowship award is open to MSU graduate students from a wide range of disciplines who incorporate research from Montana's Digital Resources Database into their research projects. See website for fellowship information and application instructions. |
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The Graduate Return to Learn Scholarship is a $500/semester award for one semester designed to support graduate students who are returning to their academic journey after stepping away for a year or more. This scholarship aims to assist individuals who have taken time away from classes and school for various reasons, providing them with financial support as the re-embark on their educational pursuits. |
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| Varies | Varies |
Scholarships for many different needs, including professional development, education, and emergency funding for personal reasons. |
- Many academic departments offer opportunities for graduate teaching and research assistantships. Prospective graduate students should contact their admitting department for information on assistantship availability.
- Check the College of Education, Health and Human Development site for Graduate Assistantships across MSU.
- Check the Graduate School's policies and procedures regarding assistantships.
- Confirm your Graduate Appointment
None at this time
Overview
| Name | Application Opens | Application Closes | Application Link |
| Fall Delta Grants | 15-Apr | 1-Jun | Application in Infoready |
| Spring Delta grants | 1-Dec | 21-Jan | |
|
University Fellowship |
1-Dec |
Until allocated funds exhausted |
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Mildred Livingston Presidential Award |
1-Nov |
Until allocated funds exhausted |
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| PhD Start Awards (AKA PhD enhancement awards) | 1-Nov | 21-Jan | InfoReady |
| Professional Master's Fellowship | always open | always open | N/A, these awards are allocated (based on enrollment) to qualifying departments by the Graduate school |
| Faculty bridge TWs | always open | always open | email [email protected] |
Additional Information
Students may not apply for these awards. They must be nominated by faculty or their department.
Delta Grants are designed for faculty to support a Ph.D. student if the faculty’s grant has some years of funding for the student, but perhaps not long enough for the full duration of a Ph.D. Delta funds can be used to cover the difference between the typical GRA and GTA stipends.
Each Delta award will provide the difference between the GRA stipend the faculty has been paying the student (or will pay) and the average GTA stipend for that department.
Students may not apply for these awards. They must be nominated by faculty or their department.
Faculty should apply by Jun 3rd.
MSU’s Humanities, Arts, and Social Science graduate programs contribute enormously to the scholarship and creative works that advance the mission of our university. In recognition and to advance their continued excellence, we invite applications from faculty for one year of GRA support for doctoral students in one of the following doctoral programs; American Studies, History, and Psychology.
Each HASS Ph.D. fellowship will have a 10-month GRA stipend of $22,000, $910/semester additional payment, and up to 18cr of tuition waivers. The intent is that the Ph.D. student will be supported by the nominating faculty and department for the other years of their Ph.D. degree. The student can be a current student at any stage of their Ph.D. program or an incoming student for Fall 2024 or Spring 2025. We anticipate that one award will be made during FY25.
Students may not apply for these awards. They must be nominated by faculty or their department.
Departments can offer top master's prospective students who do not intend to complete a thesis a Professional Master's Fellowship. Each fellowship comes with a 6-credit tuition waiver to be used in the first two semesters of the student's masters degree program. The fellowship is for top masters prospective students who do not intend to complete a thesis and are not receiving other funding such as a GTA or GRA appointment, or staff tuition waivers.
These waivers will be either resident or non-resident depending on the recipient’s residency status and provide a 20% discount for a 30 credit master's. The fellowships are allocated proportionally to the current enrollment, for a total of ~ 30 fellowships.
Students may not apply for these awards. They must be nominated by faculty or their department.
Nominations for the University Fellowship (formerly known as the Meritorious Award), for Fall 2025 are now open. The purpose of this award is to attract outstanding new doctoral students and thus grow graduate student enrollment in alignment with the university’s academic strategic plan.
Each award is $5K/year for up to 5-years.
Students may not apply for these awards. They must be nominated by faculty or their department.
Nominations for the Mildred Livingston Presidential Award are now open for Fall 2025.The award is for new graduate students. Each award is $5K/year for up to 2-years.
Past McNair scholars can be nominated or apply for an an application fee waiver and/or tuition waiver to be used at Montana State University.
Students may not apply for these awards. They must be nominated by faculty or their department.
Indigenous (Native American, Alaskan Native, Native Hawaiian – U.S. Citizenship) graduate students pursuing degrees in STEM at MSU are eligible to apply for the scholarship program established by the A.P. Sloan Foundation.
Please click on the link above or contact Dr. Barbara Komlos, [email protected], (406) 994-4206, for general information.
This funding is designed for faculty who work with graduate students.
The Graduate School will consider bridge tuition waiver requests when an investigator’s funded project has not been renewed and temporary support is needed to support an existing graduate student who was to be supported by the unfunded grant. Faculty who can submit a request for bridge tuition waivers must be productive researchers who are in-between grants. Bridge tuition waiver requests are not intended to support new projects, new graduate students, or to be used as match.
The Graduate School will evaluate the request as quickly as possible and notify the requesting faculty of the decision.
For more information, please click through to the PhD Start Awards informational page. (note this program used to be known as the PhD Enhancement award, but the name changed to better reflect that it is to assist students at the start of their PhD).