Nearly all Ph.D. students receive financial support to cover the costs of tuition, books, and room-and-board in the form of a teaching or research assistantship. Most entering graduate students receive teaching appointments, which they generally hold during their first and second academic years. Students have teaching assignments in the lower division physics laboratories and recitation sections, and in addition serve as class graders and tutors in the undergraduate Resource Room.

Tuition costs generally change yearly, as do the stipends paid to graduate teaching assistants. Students can write to the Department for current information.

The normal academic load for full-time graduate students is 12 semester hours. Teaching and research assistants may be classified as full-time by taking 6 semester hours, but usually carry 9 hours of classes.

Students can make arrangements with individual faculty members to gain appointments as research assistants. In this capacity the student will work on a research project directly with the faculty member. These appointments can be made both for the academic year and the summer months, with terms mutually agreeable to both the student and faculty member. The stipend that the student receives as a research assistant need not be the same as that paid to teaching assistants, but is usually comparable.

Several fellowships are available to graduate students from either the University or the Federal government on a competitive basis. Eligible applicants are automatically considered for these fellowships by the Department; to assist in this process applicants should plan to take the required Graduate Record Examination no later than early December. Information on fellowships (such as those offered to minority students and women students) is available from https://gradschool.uky.edu/fellowships

Of special note is the fact that our departmental guidelines call for continued financial support of graduate students who are making good academic progress and carrying out assistantship duties satisfactorily.

M.S. students generally do not receive financial support. See https://www.uky.edu/studentaccount/tuition for graduate tuition and fees.