Internal Funding for Graduate Students

 

Foreign Language and Area Studies
Contingent upon US Department of Education funding, the Center for Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies offers academic year Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowships. The graduate FLAS Fellowship is a prestigious award funded by the US Department of Education that provides recipients up to $18,000 toward Pitt tuition or up to the full graduate tuition and most fees (based on availability of supplementary funding), in addition to a living stipend of at least $20,000. Only US citizens and permanent residents are eligible to receive FLAS Fellowships.  To apply for an academic year FLAS, you must submit a FLAS graduate application via InfoReady for approval by the department or professional school in which you are currently enrolled or to which you are seeking admission. Currently, academic year FLAS-eligible languages include: Russian, Bosnian / Croatian / Montenegrin / Serbian (BCMS), Hungarian, Polish, Slovak, Turkish, and Ukrainian.  Fellowship competitions are held each winter. Applications for AY 2025-26 must be submitted to your department or school in InfoReady by February 3, 2025.

 

FLAS awards are also available for summer language study through Pitt’s Summer Language Institute (SLI), or for intensive summer programs external to Pitt in REEES regional languages and/or levels that are not offered by the SLI. For Summer 2025, applications must be submitted to REEES in InfoReady by February 17, 2025.

Please see the University Center for International Studies (UCIS) FLAS site or contact REESAdvising@pitt.edu for more information.

 

Graduate Student Small Grants for Research and Conference Attendance
REEES small grants are open on a rolling basis to all Pitt graduate students working on topics related to our region. Graduate students may apply for up to $250 to present at a virtual scholarly conference or conduct research remotely. Students may apply no more than once per semester; preference will be given to students who have not yet received this money during the given academic year. Applications should be submitted no more than two months in advance of the conference dates or the start of the remote research project and should consist of a one-page letter sent to REESAdvising@pitt.edu indicating the purpose of the requested funds, the relationship of the conference/research project to graduate study, and details on funds that are being requested and/or have been secured from other sources.

 

Tuition Remission Fellowships
REEES usually sets aside a portion of its tuition remission discretionary fund to help graduate students cover excess tuition incurred by taking language courses for their certificates. If you wish to apply for funding, please submit a statement of purpose (maximum 1 page) containing the following information:

  1. The language course you are or will be enrolled in for the upcoming term
  2. The number of credits this will put you over the enrollment cap
  3. Your goals for continuing to study your particular language, including plans for enrollment in future courses
  4. A brief self-evaluation of your progress in your language, including the letter grade you received in your past two terms of coursework in that language (or single term, if you are at the beginning level)

Tuition Remission Fellowships are awarded on a competitive basis. Please contact REESAdvising@pitt.edu for more information.

 

Other Funding Opportunities at Pitt

Nationality Rooms Scholarships
The Nationality Rooms have awarded scholarships for summer study abroad annually since 1948. The purpose of the awards is to enable University of Pittsburgh students to have an in-depth immersion in another culture for at least five weeks. It is important that applicants choose a program that will maximize their contact with the populace abroad and be accepted by the University for credit.

Andrew Mellon Pre-doctoral Fellowships 
These fellowships are awarded to students of exceptional promise and ability either when they first enroll in the PhD program or when they have advanced to the dissertation stage. Students are nominated for this award by their home departments. 

The Office of Admissions and Financial Aid administers Owens Fellowships, Loans, and Work-Study Programs.

Study Abroad Scholarships
REEES offers tuition awards to support summer study abroad in East Central Europe, Russia, or Eurasia. Grants are awarded on a competitive basis. Students may combine REEES awards with study abroad funding from other sources, internal or external to the University. Please contact the REEES advisor for more information.