While in Graduate School Graduate Student Organizations How to pay for graduate school is the major question for most people. Fellowships or traineeships for graduate study are grants that are generally awarded on the basis of academic merit. They are intended to attract the most highly qualified students to graduate programs. They can be either portable, that is, offered by an organization or agency for study at an institution of the student's choice, or institutional, that is, offered by a university or department for study only there.
Fellowships generally provide payment of tuition and a stipend for living expenses.
Institutional fellowships are awarded either by departments or by a central fellowship office in an institution. Most are based solely on academic merit, although there may be some institutional awards that are intended for certain people, like children of veterans or people in a certain field of study. Even restricted fellowships generally involve some academic merit. Institutions that are actively recruiting students from populations underrepresented in their student body may have special fellowship programs to attract them. Some institutions guarantee a certain number of years of financial support for the most promising graduate students.