SES Funding
IDSS works to ensure all students are fully funded for the duration of their program, assuming they are progressing satisfactorily in research and academics. Full funding includes tuition, stipend, and the MIT Student Health Insurance Plan.
For their first two semesters, students are often funded by a fellowship, allowing them to explore the breadth of research offered in IDSS. To facilitate this, IDSS will nominate candidates for MIT’s competitive internal fellowships, administered by the Office of Graduate Education, and for Hammer Fellowships awarded by IDSS.
Some students are admitted to SES with a research focus and advising match already identified. In these cases, students may be offered admission with an offer for a research assistantship, as opposed to fellowship. Students admitted via this model are likely to make research progress earlier in their programs and, potentially, graduate more quickly.
After the first two semesters, most students will contribute to ongoing research by working as research assistants. Additionally, all students are required to teach, usually as a teaching trainee, for a minimum of one semester. In particular, SES students have priority for teaching opportunities in the IDSS MicroMasters Program in Statistics and Data Science.
SES students are also competitive for external fellowships. Students who have been awarded external fellowships can expect additional flexibility in terms of their time commitments (i.e. they may not have to work as research assistants, or may do so for less time). Of course, they must still pursue dissertation related research.
