Teaching Assistantships, Fellowships, and Research Assistantships
Qualified students beginning their graduate career at Illinois are guaranteed five years of financial support (contingent on satisfactory progress), including fellowships, teaching, research, and graduate assistantships, summer support, and the opportunity for an editorial assistantship at Slavic Review. Our department places special emphasis on the teaching and mentoring of graduate students. The language coordinator oversees the orientation and training of teaching assistants, who receive close individual attention through classroom observation and regular meetings. Teaching assistants attend pedagogy conferences with support from the department and the Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center . Most students admitted to the program receive teaching assistantships which include various levels of Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, and Bosnian, Serbian, and Croatian. There are also opportunities to teach undergraduate literature and culture courses.
The Slavic department is able to offer university fellowships and research assistantships to some incoming and continuing graduate students. The Foreign Language Area Study (FLAS) fellowship administered by the Russian, East European and Eurasian Center has consistently provided our graduate students with funding for both introductory and advanced training in Slavic languages. University scholarships are available to minority students. The University also offers competitive on-campus and off-campus dissertation fellowships.
For priority consideration for financial aid, students applying to enter in the Fall of 2025 should complete their application by December 20, 2024.
GRE scores are not required for admission to the PhD or to receive fellowship support, but strong scores can boost applications for competitive fellowships made available by the university. TOEFL scores are also required for international students. Please note: According to the UIUC Policy Statement regarding appointment of Non-Native Speaking Graduate Students as Teaching Assistants, updated March 1, 1997, all non-native English speakers of English who are candidates for classroom teaching assistantships must take the SPEAK test or Test of Spoken English (TSE) and receive a score of 50 or higher. If this policy applies to you, please take the test before coming to the United States .