Financial Assistance

Cost of Attendance

The most up-to-date information can be found on the bursar's website.

In estimating the cost of attendance, we assume a student takes a full course load of 12 or more hours and attends courses during fall and spring semesters. Credit hours beyond the full-time load of 12 hours can be taken at no extra charge. Taking fewer than 12 hours will decrease the estimated cost. Summer courses are not included in the estimated cost below.

The total cost per academic year in tuition and fees (as of Spring 2021) is $11,168/year for in-state students and $27,476/year for out-of-state students. This cost does not include books, housing, food, health insurance, or other miscellaneous expenses. The "extras" are estimated to cost roughly $18,000 per academic year. As such, the total estimated cost per academic year of living and going to school in Athens, GA is $29,168 for in-state students and $45,476 for out-of-state students.

International students must provide proof of sufficient financial support before they can be offered admission. Please contact Graduate Admissions at gradadm@uga.edu with any questions.

Graduate School Awards and Competitions

Graduate School financial support for incoming students consists of Graduate School Research Assistantships, Presidential Graduate Fellows awards, Doctoral and Master's Fellows Awards, and Regents Out-of-State Tuition Waivers. 

All applicants who meet the January 1 deadline for submission of their application materials are entered into competition for all applicable Graduate School awards during the application review process.

While no specific request to be considered for these awards is necessary, the inclusion of a résumé and a cover letter with your application materials (number 7 on the admissions page) will help us determine nominees for these awards.

Of particular importance to the award process is your inclusion of details which potentially set you apart from other applicants or make you unique. Please view the Graduate School's award details when preparing your letter.

Other awards and competitions  are offered by the Graduate School. For details on these awards, please see the Graduate School's webpage on Financial Assistance.

Department of Linguistics Awards

The Department of Linguistics funds its students primarily through teaching assistantships for our introductory Linguistics course, LING2100 The Study of Language. Being a teaching assistant requires at least 18 hours of graduate credit in Linguistics and a semester-long training course.

First year students are thus ineligible to receive a teaching assistantship through Linguistics for their first semester. Occasionally, students with master's degrees can receive an assistantship for the second semester of their first year. For more information about these assistantships, please see the assistantship page of this website.

We are also able to offer teaching assistantships via the Writing Intensive Program (WIP) for grading certain undergraduate linguistics courses that are proposed for this program each year by our faculty members. LING 3150 Generative Syntax, LING 4022 Advanced Phonetics and Phonology, and LING 3280 Contrastive Grammar: German - English have received WIP TAships in recent years. When available, these assistantships are awarded to students who have performed well in the graduate versions of these courses and who have expressed their interest to the instructors, who make recommendations for these awards.

In addition, a certain number of teaching assistantships in First-Year Composition and Spanish are reserved for eligible Linguistics students. Students with the necessary qualifications are strongly encouraged to pursue these opportunities and should contact the Department of English or the Department of Romance Languages in their first year to determine their eligibility and to complete the necessary training.

The normal TAships offered through Linguistics (instruction of 3 courses per year) qualify students for reduced tuition in addition to a salary for teaching. All teaching assistantships require completion of TA training courses and/or apprenticeships, as well as the minimum amount of graduate coursework (18 credit hours) in the field. Interested students should plan to take the apprenticeship courses during their first year or risk remaining ineligible in later years.

Other Resources

Other academic and non-academic departments offer assistantships with the same benefits described above, and our students are welcome to apply to any and all that become available. Students are allowed to work in other departments while earning a degree in Linguistics. A particularly helpful place for information on potential assistantship funding is the Office of the Vice President for Student Affairs website.

Another means of reducing tuition comes in the form of out-of-state tuition waivers. Out-of-state students (including international students) who have committed to attending the Linguistics Program may be nominated to receive an out-of-state tuition waiver. Such waivers reduce the cost of attendance to in-state levels, saving students roughly $15,000 per year.

Out-of-state MA students beyond their third semester and out-of-state PhD students beyond their third year who have made adequate progress toward graduation will also qualify for out-of-state tuition waivers. The reduction will be automatic for PhD students who have advanced to candidacy, but MA students will need to submit an Application for Waiver of Graduate Out-of-State Tuition to request this reduction. MA students will have to fill out a form to request this reduction. More information regarding this policy can be found on the Graduate School's website under the Graduate Enrollment Policy.

Updated: 3/4/2021