Promising graduate students may receive an institutional fellowship from their graduate school to pay the costs associated with pursuing a higher degree. According to Bowdoin College, institutional fellowships may be open to students campus wide such as diversity fellowships or they may be limited to students in a particular department to finance the student's expenses while pursuing research in that particular department.
An example of a departmental fellowship is the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Grant, which pays a weekly stipend to the student along with funding research costs and providing a housing allowance.
Nearly all graduate students finance part of the cost of graduate school by applying for fellowship programs. The government offers portable fellowship programs that promising graduate students may compete for.
Portable fellowships are a form of financial assistance that are not tied to any one institution and can be applied to financing the costs at the school best suited to carrying out the student's research. These fellowships can range from $20,000 to $30,000 per year depending upon which agency funds the fellowship program.
Government agencies that offer portable fellowships are the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, the Centers for Disease Control and many others. These fellowships help fund research in education, energy, and medical and biological science.
Fellowship programs are available that have the purpose of increasing diversity in teaching higher education. The Ford Foundation offers a fellowship to high-achieving graduate students of all races, genders and sexual orientation as a vehicle to increase diversity in faculty at colleges and universities.
According to the Ford Foundation, applying students compete nationally for the fellowship awards and must demonstrate an understanding of diversity and a commitment to teaching and research at the university level.
Other diversity fellowships are offered by the Lucent Foundation and State University of New York. These programs offer assistance to promising students to pursue research in graduate school that otherwise might not be able to do so.