Graduate Funding
Comparative Literary Studies PhD students are admitted to the program with a five-year (20 quarters) funding package. This includes tuition and stipend, as well as a health insurance subsidy of 100%.
Typically students are funded on a fellowship in the first year and fifth year. Students do not teach when on a fellowship, but take courses and/or work toward dissertation completion.
In years two, three, and four, students are funded on a graduate/teaching assistantship. Students who are teaching can assist with a class taught by a faculty member; teach a language course; or teach a small seminar of their own. Teaching is an essential element of the education and training experience of PhD students at the university. The Graduate School requires that all PhD students serve in some instructional capacity for at least one academic quarter during their graduate education at Northwestern.
The Graduate School and CLS highly encourage students to apply for internal and external funding awards, which support research and dissertation writing during the student’s academic career.
Please visit The Graduate School’s website to find more information about graduate funding.
*Please note all funding is contingent upon the student remaining in good academic standing.
CLS is able to provide funding for travel to conferences. Please read the details here: Graduate Student Funding Travel/Conference Policy, 2025-26. Apply for this funding via the:
Travel Funding Request form
Requests must be submitted at least 14 days prior to the start of the conference.
-
Please be advised that there may be a delay in processing and responding to requests submitted prior to mid-October for conferences taking place in the upcoming fiscal year. We do not receive our budget allocation from the College until after the new fiscal year has begun, and we require time to review and update our conference funding policy accordingly.
If your conference is scheduled for September, we may not be able to respond to your funding request until after the event has concluded. Save all travel receipts, as we may be able to retroactively approve your request once policy decisions have been finalized.
Conference funding is dependent on departmental budget availability and is therefore subject to change due to financial constraints.
Questions? Please reach out to CLS staff or the director.