The Department provides financial assistance for five years to all graduate students making normal progress toward the Ph.D. Students entering the program can expect to receive a fellowship during their first year of graduate study. The remaining four years are funded through a combination of fellowships, traineeships, research assistantships, and graduate student instructorships. Fellowships provide students with tuition support and a monthly stipend. Fellowships are available to students with particularly strong academic records. Rackham Merit Fellowships support underrepresented minority students with strong academic records.
Traineeships provide support to students and opportunities for research apprenticeships.
Traineeships are available to students at the Population Studies Center, in the Joint Sociology-Social Work Program, through the Institute for Research on Women and Gender, as well as through the Center for Ethnography in Everyday Life, and the Research Training Program in Psychosocial Factors in Mental Health, both at the Survey Research Center at the Institute for Social Research. Research assistantships provide hands-on experience with research under the direction of a faculty member. Research assistantships are available at the many research centers at the University. Graduate Student Instructorships provide tuition and a monthly salary to students who teach their own labs or discussion sessions in close collaboration with a faculty member. Some first-year students obtain their own fellowships and use them at Michigan.