Funding Awards

Applicants for admission (www.ece.utexas.edu/academics/graduate/admissions) to the ECE graduate program can indicate on their application for admission that they wish to be considered for funding awards, including Graduate Research Assistantships (GRAs); Teaching Assistantships (TAs), and fellowships administered by UT-Austin. For each application period covering summer term or fall term or the spring term more than one year in advance of the ECE graduate application deadline, students’ applications are reviewed holistically on their own merits, and reviewed in comparison to the other prospective students’ applications. No particular areas of the application in which a student excels can guarantee admission or admission with a funding offer. Students admitted to the ECE graduate program may or may not receive a funding offer. Funding offers may be for one 
year or for multiple years. ECE TA and GRA positions for 20 hours per week pay a monthly stipend, cover the cost of tuition for full-time enrollment of 9 credit hours, and provide health insurance coverage. Students can combine two 10-hour positions, for example, to reach 20 hours per week total. Admitted students who do not receive a funding offer can choose to enroll and provide their own funding. 

International students who are non-native speakers of English must successfully complete the ITA English Certification process to be certified to work as a TA: https://global.utexas.edu/english-language-center/resources/international-teaching-assistants

Some international students, including students from India, are exempt from having to complete the certification process. Students who conditionally pass the ITA English test must enroll in ESL 389T, Communication and Teaching, in the semester they work as a TA, and earn a grade of CR (Credit) in the course to be fully certified to work as a TA in the future. ESL 389T counts toward full-time enrollment for the semester, but the course does not count toward degree requirements. 

New and continuing students can apply for TA positions in ECE and in other UT-Austin departments and programs when the TA applications for the upcoming fall or spring or summer term are available and/or accepted. ECE TA application website: https://apps.ece.utexas.edu/node/add/ta-application. Students may contact the Graduate Coordinator in other departments or programs to ask how to apply for a Teaching Assistantship as the process can vary greatly across campus: https://gradschool.utexas.edu/connect. 

Professors hire and manage their own GRAs. Sometimes ECE graduate students are hired to work as a GRA for professors in other departments or programs, or for various research centers. Taking professors’ courses, reviewing their personal websites, reading and studying their publications and the papers they reference, and talking to fellow graduate students in the professors’ research groups, are ways that students can prepare to approach a professor about working for them as a GRA.

To qualify for the in-state tuition rate, please note that the work a student does as a TA or GRA in another department must be related to the student’s degree program. The UT-Austin Student Accounts Receivable office audits and flags students with positions outside their major. You may be asked by the ECE Graduate Coordinator to provide information about your work in other departments so that the ECE Graduate Advisor can determine if you qualify for the in-state tuition rate for the current semester only, or for current and future semesters if you work in the same department, program, or center in the future.

Many graduate students in ECE work as interns off campus in summers for tech companies across the U.S., and sometimes in fall and spring in Austin, Texas, to gain experience and to help fund their graduate studies. Most international students holding F-1 visas must enroll for two long semesters (fall and spring, not counting summer) at UT-Austin before they can apply for approval from ECE to apply for Curricular Practical Training authorization from International Student and Scholar Services (part of Texas Global), to work as an intern off campus, and to take a required internship course corresponding to each summer term of CPT or fall or spring semesters of CPT. Some students transferring to UT-Austin who were enrolled in the same kind of ECE degree program for two long semesters without a break in enrollment immediately prior to enrolling in the UT-Austin ECE graduate program (not counting summer) may be eligible for immediate participation in CPT in their first semester. Completing an internship is not a degree requirement in ECE, and ECE has no educational requirement that graduate students must fulfill by working immediately as an intern in their first or second semester of enrollment. Thus, the requirement to enroll for two long semesters before applying for CPT and working as an intern off campus cannot be waived if an international student does not otherwise qualify. This non-negotiable determination is made by International Student and Scholar Services and not by ECE. 

Students who take a leave of absence, or who for whatever reason must leave the U.S. and return with a new I-20, must enroll again for two long semesters again as described above before they can apply for approval from ECE to apply for Curricular Practical Training authorization from International Student and Scholar Services