Helpful Links

Navigate OHIO

About OHIO Admission Athletics
Academics Life at OHIO

Connect With Us

Psychology
Mailing Address: Porter 200

Experimental Psychology Graduate Financial Aid

The Psychology Department provides financial aid to almost all its graduate students. Aid may come in the form of a scholarship that pays one’s tuition or a stipend to help offset living expenses. Most students receive both.

 Financial aid is awarded on merit, and holders of these awards are expected to carry out their responsibilities appropriately. If, in the judgment of the Experimental Section, a student is not meeting his or her responsibilities or is otherwise not showing merit, the financial aid can be temporarily suspended or terminated permanently.

Students who receive a stipend are expected to spend about 15 hours per week in service to the department. First-year students normally assist a faculty member with classroom work or with research. Second-year students gradually phase into teaching, and third- and fourth-year students often teach an undergraduate course once or twice a year, although there is no requirement that they do so.

Offers of financial aid are contingent on the availability of funds, but funding has been relatively stable for a number of years. The department’s priorities for awarding funding are:

  1. First- through fifth-year students
  2. Summer session students
  3. Students in their sixth year and beyond. Students who take an extra year (or more beyond the normal five years) are thus the least likely to receive financial aid.

GA, TA & RA Appointments

Students who are awarded a stipend are assigned the responsibilities of Graduate Associate (GA), Teaching Associate (TA) or Research Associate (RA).

Graduate Associates

GAs are assigned to one or more faculty members, normally in the Experimental Section, and assist those faculty members for a total of about 15 hours per week with classroom work, research, or administrative activities. The GA assignment lasts through the week of final exams. The Assistant Chair for Graduate Studies decides upon GA assignments generally a week or two before a new semester begins. Students will likely be assigned to a different faculty member each semester, which gives them broader exposure to departmental activities. Nearly all first-year students are appointed as GAs.

Teaching Associates

TAs normally teach lower-level undergraduate courses. In the Spring Semester the department offers a two-credit teaching seminar to prepare students to teach psychology courses. The seminar is a nuts-and-bolts course on how to prepare lectures, how to create exams, how to develop class rapport, etc.

In the third year and beyond, a student may take full responsibility for a course, most likely beginning with a section of the basic statistics course that is standardized across all TAs before moving on to a content course related to his or her program. TAs thus move into teaching responsibilities in a gradual fashion, and TA assignments are made in the Spring for the following year by the department chair.

Research Associates

RAs conduct research for a faculty member. Their stipend is paid by a research grant held by a faculty member, and the RA assists the faculty member in the research specified in the grant. The selection of a student for an RA is made by the grant holder. The appointment is for 15 hours per week and continues through final exams week. RA appointments often continue for more than one semester.

Major Medical Insurance Plan

The university provides a major medical insurance plan that protects graduate students against major medical and surgical expenses wherever they may be. The insurance plan is mandatory for every graduate student who is registered for at least seven hours unless the student submits evidence of coverage by a comparable private insurance plan.

The insurance plan covers the period from Aug. 16 through Aug. 15 of the next year. A student must be registered for at least five hours in each semester to obtain a full year of coverage.

For further information about the insurance plan, contact the Student Health Service business office in Hudson Health Center.

Certain students are eligible to receive insurance with lower enrollment than seven hours. Students who are on internship, are working solely on a thesis, are working solely on a dissertation, or have a J1 visa are eligible for insurance if they register for one credit hour in two or more consecutive semesters. For further information, see the Assistant Chair for Graduate Studies.

Semester Limits on Tuition Support

A graduate-level student with an awarded graduate degree from another institution can receive no more than 10 semesters of tuition scholarship from any department or combination of departments.

A graduate-level student without an awarded graduate degree from another institution or one who has earned a graduate degree from Ohio University can receive no more than 12 semesters of tuition scholarship from any department or combination of departments.

No Ohio University graduate student can ever receive more than 12 semesters of graduate tuition scholarship from any department or combination of departments.

After a student has received the maximum number of semesters of tuition scholarship, that student will no longer be eligible to receive a tuition scholarship from any Ohio University program or department.

After a student has received the maximum number of semesters of tuition scholarship, that student could still receive a stipend without a Tuition Scholarship.

This limitation does not apply to employee fee waivers.

Students should register for a minimum of 12 credit hours each semester but can register for up to 20 in certain instances.