Financial Information

Tuition and Fees
Financial Aid
Teaching and Research Assistantships
University Doctoral Fellows

Tuition and Fees
Please see the Student Financial Services website for current tuition and fee information. Your tuition rate is determined by your residency status – either in-state, out-of-state, which would include international students or online. Guidelines for residency status are posted on the Division of Student Affairs site.

Teaching and Research Assistantships  
A limited number of teaching and research assistantships are available for matriculated, full-time (minimum of 9 credits/semester) graduate students. Assistantships are assigned by the student's department and are subject to the agreement between UMass Lowell and UAW/Graduate Employees Organization. Therefore, all requests for teaching assistantships should be directed to the departmental graduate coordinator or chairperson.

Qualifying for an Assistantship
To ensure that teaching assistantships are awarded to the most qualified individuals, the Graduate School has established the following requirements:

1. No teaching/research assistantship may be awarded to a graduate student with incompletes, Fs, or Us on his or her transcript. 

2. No teaching/research assistantship may be awarded to a graduate student with a cumulative grade point average under 3.0 on the official transcript.

3. No University-funded teaching/research assistantship may awarded to a master's degree candidate if he/she has completed the total number of credits required for his/her program.

4. Level III teaching/research assistantships may only be awarded to graduate students who have reached doctoral candidacy (i.e., completed all course work, oral/written and language examinations) and are enrolled in dissertation research.

Research assistantships are available through special arrangements with individual research advisors. Individuals interested in research assistantships should contact departmental faculty members concerning the availability of this form of financial aid.

Assistantship Amounts
The amount of the teaching or research assistantship (TA or RA) for each semester or academic year is set according to agreement between UMass Lowell and the UAW/Graduate Employees Organization. 

For in-state students, a full-time assistantship carries a taxable stipend plus a full tuition and fees waiver for each semester. A half-time assistantship for in-state students carries a taxable stipend plus a half tuition and fees waiver for each semester.

For out-of-state students, a fulltime assistantship carries the same taxable stipend as the in-state students, plus a full out-of-state tuition waiver. Out-of-state students with a fulltime assistantship are still responsible for a small portion of their fees. 

A half-time assistantship for an out-of-state student carries the same taxable stipend as the in-state students, plus a half out-of-state tuition and fees waiver.

The TA and RA contract packages do not include summer support, which may be available in the department from individual researchers.  Stipend information for the current year may be found on the Human Resources website. Master's and doctoral students in their first year qualify for "Stipend level 1."  Doctoral students who have  passed their qualifying exam may qualify for "stipend level 2," and "stipend level 3" is awarded to doctoral students who have passed all area and language examinations (oral and written), who have completed all course work, who have successfully defended their research proposal(s), and who are registered for full-time dissertation research.