Department Funds

The Departmental Semester Fellowship (DSF) provides a stipend of $18,750 (2024-25) and pays in-state registration fees for one semester. All eligible graduate students are guaranteed to receive a one-semester DSF, typically awarded between their 3rd and 5th years. Students with a multi-year fellowship/grant from an external or University source are not eligible to apply for the DSF.

Applications will be solicited each Spring semester and will be considered for the following academic year. Students wishing to use the DSF in the Spring semester must apply in the previous spring term; there is no Fall application. For more information on this fellowship and its eligibility requirements please refer to the bcourses or email psychgradadvisor@berkeley.edu.

Each first-year domestic student who is out-of-state (i.e, is not yet a California resident),  has their non-resident supplemental tuition (NRST) paid by the department for their first and second semesters only. Eligible students must become California residents for tuition purposes before the third semester to avoid being charged non-resident tuition. All out-of-state domestic students in their third or later semesters are responsible for payment of their NRST.

Each first-year international student has their non-resident tuition (NRST) paid by their sponsoring faculty mentor for the first and second semesters. The department pays it for the third and fourth semesters. For more information please refer to the bcourses or email psychgradadvisor@berkeley.edu.

Note that a student who receives NRST through the UC Admissions fellowship or another source will have NRST covered through that source instead of the department or faculty mentor.

If a student is eligible to receive NRST through another source in any given semester, such as through UC Admissions fellowships, this will replace the departmental or faculty mentor NRST outlined above.

The department understands that there are sometimes small, research-related costs that come up that your advisor(s) may not know about and/or cannot cover. We encourage you to ask your advisor(s) about this, but we also want to offer an alternative source of funding for such costs--namely, a pool of funds to which you can make requests for reimbursement for small, research-related costs. Although in many cases we won't be able to cover the full costs you've incurred (e.g., full airfare) we do hope that some reimbursement is better than none! More information about the Psychology Department Small Research Expenses Fund is available in our Psych Grads bCourse.

The department provides travel grants to support graduate students who would like to present at professional conferences. These departmental travel awards are designed to supplement the Graduate Division travel grants. More information about the Psychology Department Travel Fund for Graduate Students is available in our Psych Grads bCourse.

In addition to department specific funds, we also have a number of names external fellowship and grant opportunities that grads are encouraged to consider. For the list of external fellowships please refer to the UC Berkeley Graduate Division Website.

Here are a few of external fellowships that are students have won:
-Office of Graduate Division Fellowship
-Conference Travel Grants
-University of California Dissertation