Fellowships are a form of gift aid, money that does not need to be repaid. They are similar to scholarships, but are directed at graduate and professional school students instead of undergraduate students.
More than $1 billion in private scholarships are awarded each year to nearly 200,000 graduate and professional students. Students in Ph.D. programs are more likely to receive a private fellowship than students in Master’s or professional degree programs, but more than half of private fellowships are received by students in Master’s degree programs and about a fifth are received by students in professional degree programs.
The following are some of the more well-known graduate fellowship programs.
Arts and Humanities
- American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS)
- Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowships in Humanistic Studies
- Beinecke Scholarship
- Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation
- James Madison Graduate Fellowships
- Mellon Foundation Fellowships
- Skadden Foundation Fellowships
- Social Science Research Council Fellowships
- Woodrow Wilson Foundation Fellowships
Education
General Fellowships
- American Association of University Women Fellowships
- Ford Foundation Fellowship Program
- Jack Kent Cooke Foundation
- Josephine De Karman Fellowship Trust
- Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans
International Study
- Fulbright Scholar Program
- Gates Cambridge Scholarships
- Henry Luce Foundation
- Institute of International Education (IIE)
- Marshall Scholarships
- Rhodes Scholarship
- Thomas J. Watson Fellowship
Science, Mathematics and Engineering
- AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellowships
- Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Sloan Research Fellowships
- GEM Fellowship Program (National Consortium for Graduate Degrees for Minorities in Engineering and Science)
- Graduate Women in Science National Fellowships Program
- Hertz Foundation Graduate Fellowships in Applied Physical Sciences
- National Defense Science & Engineering Graduate Fellowship (NDSEG)
- National Physical Science Consortium (NPSC) Graduate Fellowships in Science, Mathematics and Engineering
- National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program
- Robert H. Goddard Memorial Scholarship
- U.S. Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellowship
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Fellowships
- Wenner-Gren Foundation
- Winston Churchill Scholarship
Learn More About Scholarships and Grants