M.S. Funding and Assistantships

Financial aid: The CS Department does not offer financial aid based upon need. Contact the financial aid office of the university for such assistance.

Instructional Assistantships (IAs): Most of our graduate assistantship funding goes to PhD students and continuing MS students. The total amount of assistantship funding for the new MS students is rather limited. All MS applicants should enter “Yes” in the application form on the question, “Assistantship Interest.”

After arriving on campus, an accepted MS student can submit an IA application with the Computer Science. To be considered for an Instructional Assistantship, you must:

  1. Apply via UNC Charlotte’s Hire-A-Niner.
  2. Fall 2022 application NOW LIVE

Once you do this, faculty at CCI will contact you if your qualifications meet the specific requirements of the courses they teach.

  • Do not contact faculty directly about Instructional Assistantships
  • Questions about paperwork, contracts, etc. should be emailed to cci-cs-student-hire@uncc.edu

If you are selected for an IA and are a first time student employee, you will then need to complete the I-9 / Hiring Documents these steps are documented at https://hr.charlotte.edu/recruitment-and-hiring/new-employee-forms.

Please note that these are very competitive and dependent on enrollment and/or funding. IAs do not cover tuition, they provide hourly pay. There is a very limited number of Graduate Assistantships that from time to time are made available to MS students; however, these are exceedingly rare.

Research Assistantships (RAs): Most of our graduate Research Assistantships go to PhD students. Research assistantships (RA’s) are usually associated with faculty research projects with external funding. While most RA’s go to Ph.D. students, occasionally faculty may have a RA position for a Master’s student. Most faculty will expect the master’s student take courses with the faculty first, so that faculty can get to know the student and their capabilities. Many faculty will favor MS students who took a MS course at UNC Charlotte related to the RA topic, who show a keen interest in research and who plan to pursue the MS thesis option.

Tuition remissions: A few tuition remissions are given by the Graduate school from departmental nominations based upon high merit, but there is a graduate school requirement that all nominations first have an assistantship (not a grader position). Once you have an teaching or research assistantship, your faculty supervisor may nominate you. The department will only nominate a student who has an assistantship within the Department of Computer Science and with a strong recommendation from a faculty member. Research assistants take precedence.

Campus employment opportunities: The University has over 22,000 students and the almost 1000-acre campus has many opportunities for on-campus employment. These are generally managed through https://hireaniner.charlotte.edu/. The University Career Center can also help find local employment.