Assistantship duties require from 10 to 16 hours of work per week and may include both a stipend and a tuition supplement, though a few "stipend only" assistantships are available. The tuition supplement is automatically deducted from your tuition charges (all graduate assistants pay the graduate in-state tuition rate) and normally covers the cost of tuition up to nine credits per semester. Stipends range up to $10,000 per academic year, depending on the GA area. Please see individual links below for more detailed information.
Applicants must be admitted by the Graduate School as a degree student before being offered a Graduate Assistantship position.
Apply
The deadline to apply for graduate assistantship positions is February 1. Priority will be given to those applicants whose admission file and audition are complete by that date. Applications, materials and auditions will continue to be accepted through the last live audition date.
Assistantships may be available in:
- Band
- Bassoon
- Community Music School
- Choral Conducting
- Clarinet
- Entrepreneurship
- Flute
- Guitar
- Horn
- Marching Percussion
- Music Education
- Music History
- Oboe
- Opera/Voice
- Orchestra
- Percussion
- Piano and Piano Pedagogy
- Saxophone
- Spark
- The Collective
- Steel Band Percussion
- Strings
- Theory and Composition (The Southern Exposure and Collective assistantships are not open at this time.)
- Trombone
- Trumpet
- Tuba
Full time graduate students, all graduate assistants, and all international students are required to have health insurance coverage. Students can provide proof of their own coverage or enroll in the university sponsored plan. Graduate Assistantship awards come with a subsidy for the cost of the university plan's premium, if you choose to enroll in it. More information on the USC sponsored health plan.
Graduate Fellowship Opportunity
At the present time the School of Music offers one named graduate fellowship, The
Carroll Taussig Fellowship in Opera, as well as $2,500 fellowship awards in voice,
woodwinds, brass, music education and double bass. Smaller fellowship awards are available
to music students in all degree programs upon recommendation by the area faculty.
There is no application process for Fellowship Awards. All students who audition are
considered.