Financial Support

Graduate Assistantships

All graduate assistantships are awarded on a competitive basis. Assistantship appointments may be for either 12 months or 9 months and are renewable annually. Renewal is based on the student making satisfactory progress in the degree program and performing assistantship responsibilities satisfactorily.

For the 2008-2009 year, the standard beginning assistantship is $10,000 for the academic year for M.S students and $15,000 for the calendar year for Ph.D. students.

South Carolina law requires that departments assure that graduate students are competent in spoken English before they can be certified to serve as teaching assistants. Therefore students for whom English is not a native language will be required to pass the SPEAK exam before they can work as teaching assistants. The SPEAK exam is administered by the English Department at Clemson and is similar in form to the Test of Spoken English administered by Education Testing Service (ETS). The SPEAK exam is offered at the start of each semester and once during the summer. It is expected that students will pass this exam during the first year of study. If a student does not pass the exam by the end of the first year of study, that student may be asked to leave the program. Stipends for students who have not yet passed the SPEAK exam will be lower than for those who have passed and can therefore serve as laboratory teaching assistants.

Students receiving assistantships are responsible for assisting departmental faculty in the conduct of the teaching and research programs. All students receiving assistantships will be expected to teach lab sections of Experimental Statistics 301 and 801. Other teaching assistant duties such as grading for and assisting faculty with large course sections may also be required

The work that graduate assistants do for their assistantships may or may not be directly related to their thesis or dissertation research. Graduate assistants are employees of the University and are expected to be in their offices each day that is not a University holiday. Students who need to be away from the office at other times should inform their advisors.

The maximum period for which a graduate student may receive an assistantship from the Department is two years for M.S. students and four years for Ph.D. students. Requests to extend the time that a student may receive an assistantship are granted only under extraordinary circumstances. Therefore, it is extremely important for students to be aware of these limits and to plan their program of study accordingly

The 2007-2008 tuition, including all related fees, for graduate students who are residents of South Carolina and not on assistantship is $3,157 per semester for students taking 12 or more credit hours and $1,350 for each summer session. Tuition for non-resident graduate students who are not on assistantship is $6,317 per semester and $2,280 for each summer session. All graduate students receiving assistantships at any level of funding pay reduced tuition and fees, currently $950 per semester. Tuition may be paid through payroll deduction except for the first semester of the student's enrollment. (Tuition/fees are set by the Clemson University Board of Trustees during their July meeting for the following academic year.)

All graduate students are required to have health insurance. Students who are already covered by policies that meet the University's requirements are eligible for waivers. All others are covered by the Clemson University Student Insurance Plan. Fees are included with tuition & fees for Fall and Spring semesters (summer premium is included in the Spring semester) and students are automatically enrolled. Fees for the Clemson University Student Insurance are subsidized by the Graduate School .