5 Doctoral Fellowships for Minorities in Education

Aug 22, 2017

Last updated September 26, 2023

If you’re looking for opportunities to fund your doctoral dissertation research and you identify as a person of a historically underrepresented ethnicity, then you might be eligible for several exciting fellowships that aim to increase racial diversity in academia. Check out the following doctoral fellowships for minorities in education and be sure to bookmark these opportunities to your ProFellow account.

AERA Minority Dissertation Fellowship in Education Research

The Council of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) established the fellowship program to provide support for doctoral dissertation research, to advance education research by outstanding minority graduate students, and to improve the quality and diversity of university faculties. This fellowship is targeted for members of racial and ethnic groups historically underrepresented in higher education (e.g., African Americans, Alaskan Natives, American Indians, Asian Americans, Hispanics or Latinos, and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islanders). Eligible graduate students for the AERA Minority Dissertation Fellowship in Education Research will be at the writing stage of their dissertation by the beginning of the fellowship. Include a $19,000 stipend to study education, teaching, learning, or other education research topic.

Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans

The Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowships honor immigrant tradition in the U.S. by providing up to $90,000 over 2 years to 30 new Americans who will be pursuing a full time graduate degree program in any field at an American institution in the United States. To be eligible you must have been born outside the U.S. (as a non-citizen) and, as of November 9 of the year you apply, be either a naturalized citizen or in possession of a green card (i.e., be a resident alien). Applicants can be undergraduate seniors or in the 1st or 2nd year of a graduate program. Their accomplishments must show impressive creativity, originality and initiative.

SREB-State Doctoral Scholars Program

The program’s goal is to produce more minority Ph.D students who seek careers as faculty on college campuses. The Doctoral Scholars Program provides multiple layers of support including financial assistance, academic/research funding, career counseling and job postings, scholar counseling and advocacy, a scholar directory for networking and recruiting, invitation to the annual Institute on Teaching and Mentoring, and continued early career support. The fellowship is open to minorities pursuing a Ph.D. who are a U.S. Citizen or have permanent U.S. residency.

National Abolitionist Leadership Fellowship

The National Abolitionist Leadership Fellowship allows middle and high school teachers to work alongside youth in challenging traditional classroom environments. Our youth-led approach provides Abolitionist Fellows with the community, education, and individualized classroom support to drive systemic change. Fellows receive tailored coaching and curriculum development support grounded in our PERM Framework geared towards improving outcomes for Black and Latinx students. Fellows can receive a stipend of up to $2,000 to use towards resources for decolonizing their classroom. Applications will be accepted on an ongoing basis and will be processed within a week of submission.

Minority Postdoctoral Fellowship

The Minority Postdoctoral Fellowship Program seeks to promote the recruitment and retention of a diverse faculty at Teachers College. The program does this by advancing the careers of individuals from groups in U.S. society historically underrepresented in the academic profession. It provides recent doctorate recipients the opportunity to develop a program of research and participate as active community members in the life of a graduate research university. Recipients must be self-motivated and able to work independently on their research projects. The fellowship includes a $65,000 salary, $4,500 for teaching a course, and research support of $5,000.

Interested to find more funding opportunities like these? Sign up for the free ProFellow database, which includes more than 2,600 funded fellowships and fully funded graduate programs.

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