Funding Availability 

Financial support is available to a number of students each year in the form of instructional (IA), teaching (TA), and research (RA) assistantships, and fellowships. Students are also eligible and encouraged to apply for fellowships through the appropriate federal and private organizations (i.e., NSF Graduate Research Fellowships, US EPA STAR Fellowships, GRO Graduate Fellowships, etc). The Graduate School homepage provides a list of fellowships available to students. More information can be found at: http://www.gradschool.sc.edu/GSbasic/text/FeaturedSites/FeaS_FellowshipAndAwards.html

Instructional and Teaching Assistantships

Applicants to the Graduate Program of the Department of Geological Sciences are considered for graduate assistantships if requested in their application. Every semester the Graduate Studies office will assess assistantship availability for current and new incoming graduate students.

All IA/TAs are required to have completed the Graduate Teaching/Instructional Assistant workshop that is provided by the Graduate School before the start of each academic semester (usually August and January each year). In addition, International Students are required to have successfully passed the International Teaching Assistant (ITA) Assessment.

Students on IA/TA support receive tuition support in the form of a supplement.  Fees are assessed by the University and are the responsibility of the student.

Research Assistantships

Research assistantships are provided only by individual faculty through research grants that are administered by the Office of Sponsor Awards Management (SAM) at USC.

Graduate students on RA support are provided with a tuition supplement through the grant funding their salary.  Students on RAs are required to take the minimum load mandated by the Graduate School (i.e., 6 hrs/semester) and should expect to receive tuition support from the grant at least for the minimum load. The tuition supplement is established by the Department as a credit with the Bursar’s Office against which tuition will be charged each semester. Students are responsible for any portion of their tuition not covered by the assistantship. Fees are assessed by the University and are the responsibility of the student.