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 department. To be considered for an Instructional Assistantship, you must apply via UNC Charlotte’s Hire-A-Niner.

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.charlottewp.psapp.dev/employees/student-employees/.

Please note that these are very competitive and dependent on enrollment and/or funding. IAs do not cover tuition. 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.

Campus employment opportunities: The University has over 30,000 students and 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.