Funding

The Graduate School guarantees Ph.D. students five years of stipend, tuition, and fees support, plus six years of full coverage for health and dental insurance premiums.

In addition, Romance Studies provides financial support for six years for all students admitted to the PhD program. The funding package is composed of a balance of a research assistantship, fellowships, teaching assistantships, and teaching in the language programs. Beginning with those admitted for Fall 2022, students are funded for a full twelve months.

Typically funding support is as follows. First-year students serve as a research assistant with a professor in their field of study (maximum 8-9 hours per week). Beginning in the second semester of the second year, students teach a maximum of one course per semester in the language program, as part of our pedagogy training that includes a course on teaching methods. Following successful completion of the Preliminary Exam and Dissertation Prospectus workshop in the third year, students receive two semesters of fellowship with no other obligations, which frees them to travel for dissertation research. In the fifth year, students may design and teach a course, as a key component to professionalization in the academy, and often teach in the language program. In the fifth year, students who require a sixth year of funding apply for competitive fellowships within Duke and externally; all those who apply for these fellowships are guaranteed a sixth year of funding.

Additionally, we support our students who apply for additional fellowships during these years, such as FLAS (Foreign Language Area Studies), Fulbright, Mellon, etc., which offer additional flexibility and opportunities for professional growth.

For more information, visit gradschool.duke.edu/financial-support.