Fellowships

Financing your degree is an obstacle faced by all students. Support through loans, fellowships, and/or employment is available to both incoming and continuing graduate students through the Financial Aid Office, the University, FSPH, the Department, and affiliated research centers. As a graduate student, it is critical to develop a habit of searching for funding. Taking the initiative to search for opportunities should be done continuously: Apply EARLY, OFTEN, and be PERSISTENT. This will help you later on in your career as a director searching for funding to support programs, or a PI applying for grants to fund research projects.

UCLA Fellowship and Award Opportunities

As a UCLA student, three main units on-campus - the Department, FSPH, and UCLA Graduate Division, offer fellowships, if funding is available:

Department Opportunities

The Department typically has a small amount of funds, and its availability is highly variable each year. These funds are very limited and are awarded on the basis of scholarship and financial need. For new students, recipients were notified with their admission email from FSPH. For continuing students (2nd year+), call for applications will be sent by the SAO if funding is available. 

Fielding School of Public Health

The Fielding School of Public Health has a limited number of interest-based fellowships and scholarships for Masters and Doctoral students. Formal announcements and fellowship applications for School funding opportunities are sent to students via email from the Director of Admissions and Financial Aid upon availability throughout the academic school year. For new students, recipients were notified with their admission email from FSPH.

For MPH students completing the fieldwork in the Summer, FSPH typically sends out a list of available funding opportunities during Spring Quarter.

UCLA Graduate Division  

Funding applications for new students were a part of the UCLA Graduate Application, thus the deadline for 2025-26 has passed. To prepare for 2026-2027 funding opportunities, a booklet is sent to all graduate students via email from the Graduate Division in December. More information at UCLA Funding.

Extramural Sources

The Graduate Division offers a a searchable database, GRAPES, of 540 private and publicly funded awards, grants, and fellowships of interest to prospective and current graduate students, students working on a master's thesis or doctoral dissertation, and postdoctoral scholars. You may opt to subscribe to the Grad Fellowships Listserv.

The UCLA Graduate Division has also created a fellowship directory listing starting points of where to find fellowships.