Funding

Perhaps the single most common source of confusion in graduate funding is what sorts of funding are included in calculations of a student's total of pledged semesters of funding. For example, does a student use up a semester of pledged funding if s/he works as a TA for Women's Studies or works for the Southern Historical Collection? Or what are the implications for pledged funding if a student receives an external fellowship?

Each situation is likely to have its own specific complexities, but here is a general rule to keep in mind. Each semester keep track of who is paying your tuition. If UNC-CH is paying your tuition (in other words, if you are not paying your tuition) and you aren't being billed for tuition, then the “clock is ticking” and you are using up your pledged funding. Let me offer a few common scenarios, for example. Student A elects to teach as a TA in a German Language course. You might think that because Student A is working for another department, and not History, that she would not be tapping her History department support. But, in fact, when the History department offered the student X number of semesters of support, it actually was offering the support on behalf of the university and not the History department exclusively. So whether Student A works for the History or German department is immaterial; what matters is whether Student A's tuition is paid for by the university. If Student A receives tuition remission while working for the German department, then she has used up a semester of the funding that the History department pledged to her.

Here is another common scenario. Student B receives a prestigious external grant that provides a generous stipend but does not cover tuition or health insurance. The Graduate School and History department pledge to cover Student B's tuition and health insurance during the period of the fellowship. Even though, in this instance, the stipend is coming from an external funding source, Student B is receiving tuition funding from the university and, consequently, is using up some of the funding pledged by the History department.

Finally, in another scenario Student C received a prestigious external fellowship to spend a year in the Republic of Perdido. During the period of research Student C does not enroll as a student. Her insurance is provided through her fellowship. In this instance, Student C receives neither funding nor services from UNC-CH during the period of her fellowship. Consequently Student C does not use any of her pledged funding while she is receiving her external fellowship and her funding clock, so to speak, is not running.

You may hear about various ways in which students in earlier eras extended the funding clock. It is certainly true that the regulation of funding has become tighter. The Graduate School and university have much better data gathering programs than they used to have. In addition, the Graduate School is committed to policing and speeding up the time from admission to completion of degree. In any case, the current system is easy to understand once you recognize that the university considers tuition support, rather than your stipend, to be the decisive measure of pledged support. So, if in any way, shape, or form, UNC-CH is paying your tuition, your funding clock is ticking.