Most Master of Science in Forest and Natural Resource Sciences students are supported by Research and Teaching Assistantships, which include a stipend, a health insurance policy, and scholarship funds that cover in-state and out-of-state tuition for graduate courses. However, undergraduate course tuition is not covered for Research and Teaching Assistants unless:

• a student is enrolled simultaneously in at least nine (9) graduate credits, or 
• the specific undergraduate courses are required by a student’s advisory committee for that student’s Master of Science in Forest and Natural Resource Sciences degree (e.g., to resolve course deficiencies that resulted in conditional admission to the degree program) and the student takes the required undergraduate courses for a letter grade (i.e. not on a pass/fail basis).

Research and Teaching Assistants pay their own student health services and recreational activity fees.

Some of the Forestry and Natural Resources Graduate Program’s assistantships are funded by research grants and contracts to individual faculty members. Applicants should discuss the availability of such assistantships (and application deadlines) with prospective major professors before applying for admission.

Additional assistantships are sometimes available from Department of Forestry and Natural Resources funds. These assistantships are ordinarily awarded in March to students admitted for the subsequent fall semester; thus, the admissions application deadline for Departmentally-funded assistantships is usually 1 February.

An applicant who wishes to be considered for a Departmentally-funded assistantship should, early in the application process, contact the Director of Graduate Studies of the Forestry and Natural Resources Graduate Program for instructions and the relevant application deadline.

Assistantships are awarded on a competitive basis by the faculty members of the Forestry and Natural Resources Graduate Program Committee. Assistantship appointments are contracted initially for a maximum period of 12 months. However, when an assistantship is awarded, the intention is that it would be renewed to provide financial support for a total period of up to 24 months, assuming that funds are available and satisfactory progress is being made toward the degree.