Why UVa?

The Department of History at University of Virginia provides six years of guaranteed funding to all admitted PhD students. Many PhD programs offer only five years of funding, but according to the latest NSF Survey of Earned Doctorates, practically no field in the United States has a median time to PhD degree less than six years. Within the six years of funding, PhD students in the Department of History currently receive at least two years of guaranteed full fellowship funding in which they are not required to serve as a teaching assistant, which means more time to focus on research and writing.

The minimum living support stipend for every PhD student in the Department of History is $31,518 (as of 2024) per year throughout the six years of study. PhD students pay no tuition and receive full health insurance from the university. The Department of History also provides internal grants for conference travel, summer research, and language study in addition to fellowships available through the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences and other centers at University of Virginia, such as the Jefferson Scholars Foundation. A variety of single and shared housing units are available below the market price for the Charlottesville area through graduate student housing. 

UVA libraries hold roughly 7 million items, including more than a million E-books and journals accessible digitally anywhere with a UVA login. Through Interlibrary Loan, the UVA library can deliver almost any published work that is circulating in the US and sometimes beyond. The Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, meanwhile, holds more than 16 million objects including manuscripts, archival records, rare books, maps, and audio-visual material, including one of the best repositories for history of Virginia and the southeastern United States. University of Virginia is also just 2.5 hours from Washington, DC by car or train (3-4 per day), which means nearby access to the Library of Congress, National Archives, Smithsonian Institution, and a wealth of resources for historical researchers.

In the Department of History, mentorship means much more than a student working with a single advisor. With over 40 full-time faculty and PhD cohorts of 9 to 10 students per year, graduate students can expect to learn from a team of mentors throughout their time at UVA. As part of coursework in the program, every PhD student enrolls in an introduction to historical methods co-taught by department faculty, as well as a writing seminar dedicated to devising and drafting an article-length piece of research by the end of year two. Each year the graduate program offers sessions on pedagogy, grant writing, and job applications in coordination with the Graduate History Student Association. Beyond the department, the PhD Plus program organizes an excellent selection of events to prepare graduate students for futures as university faculty and to mobilize their degrees beyond the university, from unpacking the “hidden curriculum” of graduate school to preparing for job interviews. The Center for Teaching Excellence also runs a number of programs for faculty and graduate students to collaborate on the development of syllabi and course materials.

Click here to learn more about our faculty and graduate fields of study within the Department of History at UVA.

Each cohort joins a floating population of 60 to 70 PhD and MA students within the Department of History and many hundreds more within the related fields in the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. Our Graduate History Student Association organizes events and shares knowledge to help each student become acquainted with the university and life in Charlottesville. A city of about 50,000 people with a metropolitan population around 200,000, C’ville is frequently mentioned in national rankings of overall quality of life, with lots to do for a place of its size and easy access to the outdoors in the Shenandoah National Park and Blue Ridge mountains. As home to the Rare Book School, Virginia Film Festival, and important hubs of innovation in public history, such as Monticello, the historic Charlottesville area is also a fantastic place for historians in training to make connections beyond the classroom. Its cost of living also compares favorably with many major US cities, making it a more manageable location to carry out graduate study.