International Applicants

Fees and Information for International Applicants

 

International Flags

Please note: The figures quoted below reflect information available at the time this document was prepared. 

Chances for admission and/or financial aid: Acceptance for admission and awarding of financial aid depend on how each applicant’s record compares with those of many other applicants. It is therefore impossible to estimate an individual’s chances until all applications have been received and examined.

  • Estimated Cost Per Year
  • For an international student the estimated cost per year at UC Davis is $75,895. This sum covers fees, tuition and living expenses.

    The most common kind of financial assistance a new international student is likely to receive is a Teaching Assistantship ("TAship") and / or a Nonresident Tuition Fellowship.
  • Graduate Student Fees

  • All graduate students (international and domestic) must pay "Graduate Student Fees." Additionally, International students also pay “Non-Resident Tuition”.

    Tuition and Fee amounts are updated each year and can be found here:

    https://financeandbusiness.ucdavis.edu/student-resources/tuition-fees/graduate

    (Students employed by the department have tuition and fees waived as part of their remission benefits.)

  • Teaching Assistantships
  • All applicants will be automatically considered as if they had applied for a teaching assistantship, so there is no need to submit a teaching assistantship application.

    The teaching assistant (TA) salary = $73,800 for the 2026-2027 academic year.

    It is paid monthly in nine equal installments ($8,200.00 per month for a fulltime position) beginning October 1. Since each quarter = about three months, TAs receive three payments per quarter. So "per quarter," the salary = $24,600.00 (100% FTE).

    All current student salary scales can be found here: https://grad.ucdavis.edu/understanding-your-student-salary

    Additionally, The Office of Graduate Studies requires all graduate students demonstrate oral English proficiency before they are appointed to Teaching Assistant (TA) or Associate Instructor (AI) positions. You can see minimum qualifications and additional information here: https://iae.ucdavis.edu/graduate/qualify

    Teaching assistants are entitled to full tuition and fee remission.

    In addition, international students (and domestic students who are not California residents) who are offered a TAship for the entire academic year are entitled to some funding toward the cost of moving to California (this amount varies, depending on mileage). This funding will be paid after a full year of employment can be confirmed (so early/mid Spring). New student TAs moving to Davis from outside the U.S. can receive up to $440 toward the cost of moving to California. Students must provide receipts of their own travel costs to qualify.

    Most admitted graduate students are offered a multi-year TAship as part of their financial package.

    TAship offers to international students whose first language is not English are conditional on the student being sufficiently proficient in English. Proficiency is ascertained according to the following rules: https://iae.ucdavis.edu/graduate/qualify AND https://iae.ucdavis.edu/graduate/toep.
  • Tuition Remission for Student Employees
  • Any student employed by the university is entitled to a full remission of tuition and fees during their time of employment.
  • Nonresident Tuition Fellowships
  • All "non-resident" applicants (international applicants and domestic Non-California residents) will be automatically considered "as if" they had applied for a Nonresident Tuition Fellowship (NRTF), so submitting a fellowship application for this kind of fellowship is unnecessary. NRTFs usually provide full funding toward the cost of the Nonresident Tuition fee (about $5,034 per quarter). NRTFs and Teaching Assistantships (TAships) are the most common kinds of financial aid that applicants are likely to receive. 
  • Fellowships

  • UC Davis offers several merit-based fellowships and scholarships. These are highly competitive and the Department of Economics must choose and nominate, at most, four applicants for each of these fellowships; the successful applicants are then chosen through a campus-wide competition. Historically, the Department of Economics receives 1-2 fellowships per year. 

    Consequently, only those applicants with a GPA greater than 3.7 and GRE scores exceeding the 85th percentile in both verbal and quantitative exams should apply. For more information about these fellowships, see the online admission application.

    Deadline: All application materials must be received by December 15, 2026. (The GRE must be taken no later than November 2026).

    For these UC Davis fellowships (not NRTF fellowships as described above) SUBMIT an Application for UC Davis Fellowship ONLINE along with the admission application.

  • Decisions

  • Admission and financial aid decisions about many international student applicants will not be made until sometime after March 1 because many applications are received and need to be compared, in order to admit the best applicants. The department can not predict exactly how soon decisions will be made, but applicants will be informed as soon as possible.

    Required Forms

    The formal admission letter you receive from the Graduate Admissions Office will direct you to a website (http://siss.ucdavis.edu/forms/index.html) where you can find a "UC Davis Request for I-20 / DS-2019 Form." International students are required to fill that out and submit it, indicating that they can afford $75,895 for their first year at UC Davis, before the university will send them another form (such as I-20) needed to order a visa to come to Davis ($75,895 is the estimated cost of the first year at UC Davis for international students). Consult that website for full instructions and information.

    If you have received a financial aid offer:

    Indicate on the "UC Davis Request for I-20 / DS-2019 Form" that you have received the aid offer and send a photocopy of your aid offer letter along with it when you mail it back to the university, to prove that you have been offered that amount of aid. Subtract the total amount of the aid offer from the $75,895 and also indicate on the form that you can afford to pay the remaining balance.  Also, if you received a multi-year aid offer, be careful to subtract only the amounts of the aid offer that are for your first year.

    Further information about financial aid can be found online at https://economics.ucdavis.edu/fees-and-financial-aid in the section about Admission Information.
    You can find answers to some common questions about financial aid online at https://economics.ucdavis.edu/frequently-asked-questions in the FAQ section (Answers to Frequently Asked Questions).