What Is A Fellowship?
If you’re planning to pursue additional studies after you get your undergraduate degree, a fellowship could allow you to achieve your career goals while also helping you pay for school.
What is a fellowship? And how does it work? Read on to find out about fellowship programs and how they might help bring your total educational costs down.
Key Points
• Fellowships provide funding for advanced education, often requiring work or research in return.
• These programs may cover tuition and living expenses, helping to reduce student debt.
• Fellowships are highly competitive and demand high academic performance.
• Fellowships offer valuable hands-on experience and specialized skills, enhancing career prospects.
• Fellowships are available in different fields of study and may last just a few months or as long as several years.
What Exactly Is A Fellowship?
A fellowship is a program that allows students — usually graduate students — to continue their education while earning money at the same time, most often in exchange for doing work in their field of study. It can help cover at least some of the cost of college.
A fellowship might be as short as a few months or as long as several years; it might be funded for a few thousand dollars or cover the entire cost of your graduate education, including living expenses.
The work involved could be field research, local community work, or teaching undergraduates in your discipline while you pursue higher studies. There’s a lot of variety out there depending on the program.
Fellowships are competitive prizes, and successfully securing one often requires a history of high academic merit and also writing a killer application essay (or several). The idea is that students who are awarded fellowships show potential in their field and have the capacity to become successful professionals later on.
While fellowship monies don’t need to be repaid after you graduate from the program (so long as you adhere to the parameters set out by the organization offering the fellowship), you may be doing some work or service in exchange for the funding.
Recommended: How to Pay for Grad School
Types Of Fellowship Programs
Although there are a large variety of individual fellowships programs, there are three common types you’re apt to run into.
1. Graduate Fellowships
Graduate fellowships help graduate students pursue their education by subsidizing some or all of the costs in exchange for work on-campus.
For instance, a graduate fellowship for a master’s degree in creative writing might come with a tuition waiver as well as a monthly stipend to cover living expenses, an option to purchase affordable healthcare through the school, monies to cover certain educational related travels, and so on. In exchange, the student is generally expected to teach a certain number of beginner-level courses in their field to undergraduate students.
2. Postdoctoral Fellowships
For students who’ve already earned their doctorate degrees, postdoctoral fellowships can open the door to even more education, which can help these scholars become specialized in a very specific aspect of their field.
What is the fellowship definition in this instance, and how does the fellowship work? A postdoctoral fellow might be expected to complete a certain amount of research or, again, teach courses while they continue their studies. In exchange, they might receive funding for their coursework and extracurricular activities like relevant travel.
3. Medical Fellowships
If you’re pursuing a career in the medical field, you may be wondering, what is a fellowship in medicine? For physicians and dentists who’ve already completed medical school and their residency, a medical fellowship can help them continue their training and gain more competency in a specific area of medicine.
Medical fellowships generally come after a doctor has already completed their residency. While fellowships provide an excellent learning experience and often better pay than a residency does, they still pay less than a third of the average full-fledged physician’s salary. To put it in perspective: Primary care medical fellowships pay approximately $75,943 a year on average, while a family medicine physician averages about $273,000 annually.
That means careful budgeting on a medical fellowship is likely to be required — and the same is true with any kind of academic or research fellowship.
What Is A Fellowship Like?
As mentioned above, fellowships don’t generally provide a lot of money for living expenses — your room and board may or may not be included, or you may be offered a flat stipend with which to cover your own cost of living.
Graduate students may be expected to do a lot of work for what feels like a minimal paycheck. But having one’s tuition waived is a big deal that can lead to substantial savings. This is especially true in the long term, when you consider the interest on graduate school loans.
Not only that, graduate students may already have undergraduate loans to worry about as well. And, since one of the basics of student loans is repaying them, that is likely to be top of mind. A fellowship may be a great step toward pursuing the career of your dreams without the additional burden of even more student debt.
One option for grad students to look into regarding their undergraduate loans is deferring them until after school. However, even with deferment, you might want to put some money toward student loans while still in school, to help reduce your payments later on.
Another possible alternative to consider is refinancing student loans, particularly if you could qualify for lower rates or better terms that might help reduce your monthly payments. (Be aware that you may pay more interest over the life of the loan if you lower your payment by extending your loan term.) Refinancing federal loans does mean giving up access to federal programs and protections. But if you don’t need those benefits, refinancing might be an option for you.
There are different options for refinancing student loans, including some specifically for grad students training for specialized careers, such as medical resident refinance. However, refinancing federal loans does mean giving up access to federal programs and protections. If you don’t need those benefits, refinancing might be an option for you.
Recommended: Private Student Loans Guide
Is Applying For A Fellowship Worth It?
Given the amount of work involved and the relatively small amount of money you may earn, is applying for a fellowship worth it in the first place? In the end, only you can make that decision for your own educational and financial future — but here are some pros and cons to consider.
Pros:
• Fellowships offer you the opportunity to gain hands-on experience in your field, which can help you hone your skills and also learn more about whether or not you like the work in the first place.
• Fellowships can help keep you from racking up more student debt, which is particularly attractive if you already have loans to repay.
• Fellowships last only for a short amount of time, but the experience you get by taking one on may help you create a long-lasting and stable career.
Cons:
• While completing a fellowship, you’re likely to work very hard for what feels like not very much of a paycheck.
• The application process requires dedication and work. And fellowships are very competitive: Even with great credentials, you may not get the fellowship.
• Fellowships may have very specific requirements, such as GPA or work hour minimums, and your fellowship may be revoked if you don’t complete the project or adhere to the guidelines.
The Takeaway
A fellowship can provide graduate students with an advanced education and highly specialized skills in their field. A fellowship offers funding in exchange for work to help pay for this schooling, which means that grad students may avoid accumulating more student loan debt. Fellowships are very competitive, however, so it’s wise for those considering one to weigh the pros and cons to make sure it’s the right choice for their situation.
Looking to lower your monthly student loan payment? Refinancing may be one way to do it — by extending your loan term, getting a lower interest rate than what you currently have, or both. (Please note that refinancing federal loans makes them ineligible for federal forgiveness and protections. Also, lengthening your loan term may mean paying more in interest over the life of the loan.) SoFi student loan refinancing offers flexible terms that fit your budget.
FAQ
What does it mean when you get a fellowship?
A fellowship is a funded opportunity for the advanced study of a subject. Fellowships are typically for graduate students who want to pursue advanced academics and learn highly specialized skills in their field, while earning money, or getting a stipend, to help pay for their studies.
Is a fellowship a paid job?
It depends on the type of fellowship. In general, a fellowship allows graduate students to pursue an advanced education while earning money — or receiving a cost of living stipend — to pay for their schooling, typically in exchange for doing work related to their field of study. The work might consist of doing research or teaching, for instance.
How hard is it to get a fellowship?
Fellowships are merit-based and extremely competitive. In order to secure a fellowship, an individual typically needs to have a history of high academic achievement. Students who are awarded fellowships generally must show great potential in their field with the capacity to become successful professionals in the future.
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