Graduate Financial Aid

Tuition for the 2026–27 academic year breaks down as follows:

*The grad differential is a cost applied on a school-specific basis.

Each graduate student is responsible for securing funding to attend the program, including financial aid. We encourage applicants to fill out financial aid forms early to secure funding to cover tuition, fees, and other school expenses.

The UIC School of Design also offers several possible avenues for financial support.

Graduate Assistantships, Research Assistantships, and Hourly Employment

The school, college, and university offer a variety of assistantships and hourly positions for graduate students. Many students find employment at UIC’s Innovation Center, Fab Lab, Daley Library, and the Center for the Advancement of Teaching Excellence. For current student job opportunities, sign up for Handshake, UIC’s student employment platform, or visit the UIC job board.

Teaching Assistantships

Second-year MDes students who are interested in teaching will be considered for teaching assistantships. TAships include a tuition waiver and stipend and are awarded on a per-semester basis.

Fellowships and Scholarships

Awards without an obligation to work, including scholarship programs and University Fellowships, are highly competitive. For consideration for university-level fellowships, we encourage application by our December 15 priority deadline.

Fellowship, Scholarship, and Department Funding

All MDes applicants are considered for available funding as part of the application review. Fellowships and scholarships are not available for the preliminary year of the three-year MDes program.

During the final year of study, all MDes students are considered for limited and highly competitive teaching assistantships in the School of Design’s Foundation program.

University-level fellowships require final grades from your school. If you attended a school that uses a pass/fail grading system, you must submit grade sheets from your professors indicating letter-grade equivalents.

Applying for Assistantships

Typically, students seek additional funding from UIC in the form of graduate assistantships, which cover the cost of tuition and some fees, and/or graduate hourly positions on campus. While the university offers some centralized student employment resources, the recruitment and hiring process for teaching or research assistants and other positions in other departments typically happens through those individual departments.

Look for positions on UIC’s job board and on Handshake, the university’s employment platform. Work-study jobs are open to students who have applied for financial aid and have received a work-study award. Students in the past have also found positions by reaching out directly to different academic Student Support offices to inquire about campus assistantships that haven’t posted yet. The list of these campus offices is broken into various sections, so be sure to scroll to the bottom of the page.

We have no special financial aid designated for international students. International students are required to certify that they can provide for their own tuition, fees, and living expenses for their entire stay here. Without proof of your financial support an I-20 cannot not be issued.