Financial Aid and Scholarships - Master of Translational Medicine

The University of California is committed to efforts to make quality education as affordable and accessible as possible. The MTM program helps to implement this commitment through the issuance of two different types of awards:

MTM Merit Scholarship. The MTM admissions committee offers merit-based awards to attract students with specialized skills and excellent academic performance up to $25,000. The MTM Merit Scholarships are announced in early-mid March when admissions decisions are released. These are determined from the information in your admissions application as well as your overall rubric score and do not require a separate process or any additional materials.
Financial Need. Domestic students (US citizens and permanent residents) can apply for a need-based financial award. To apply, you’ll need to fill out the FAFSA and the UCSF application for aid (instructions in the How to Apply for Financial Aid section below). Using the information you provide in your FAFSA and application, the UCSF financial aid office makes a determination of how much need-based funds you’ll be awarded. Financial Need Scholarships are announced around late March, a couple of weeks before the deadline to accept the offer of admission. The program provides applicants with prompts and more information on when and how to do this later in the admissions process.

MTM scholarships operate as a tuition reduction by being applied directly towards your tuition. If you are coming in with an external full-ride scholarship (e.g. CalVet), this may affect your eligibility for MTM program scholarships.

In addition to the merit- and need-based awards described above, the MTM nominates two candidates for the Graduate Opportunity Program (GOP) Master’s Fellowship each year. This award provides financial assistance for an entering student whose background, interests, or goals serve to enhance the level of diversity within the graduate community. The GOP award is based on financial need, academic promise, and diversity contribution, and is available to US citizens, permanent residents, and AB540 applicants who are entering a terminal master’s or professional degree program. The award consists of a $10,000 stipend ($5,000 per semester) and in-state tuition and fees for one academic year. All applicants who are eligible are automatically considered for the GOP fellowship through the normal MTM admissions process, and the finalist is notified of their nomination in February or March and whether or not they received the fellowship in early April.

Financial assistance and student loans are available through the Offices of Financial Aid at both campuses. We recommend connecting with the staff in each of these offices to learn about options for financing your masters degree and to get a picture of the full cost of attendance:

How to Apply for Financial Aid

When you apply to the MTM program, the program administration will prompt you when in the admissions cycle you should begin the process of applying for financial aid. This typically occurs around late February. Below is an overview of that process.

Step 1: Complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) application

Select academic year.
Include both UCSF and UC Berkeley school codes: 001319 and 001312.
Students must report most recent tax information.
Students who wish to be considered for financial need scholarships must also complete the Parental Data section of the FAFSA form. The federal instructions will indicate parental data is not needed for federal loans. However, in order to assess relative financial need for institutional scholarships, parental data will be analyzed. For students under the age of 30, parents’ information must be submitted on the FAFSA to be considered for Full Funding.

Step 2: Complete the UCSF Financial Aid application: https://netpartner.ucsf.edu/NetPartnerStudent.

Note that you must wait to be partially onboarded to complete this step. The program will prompt you when/how to do this during the admissions process.
Select the program/year: GA Masters in Translational Medicine.
Select the FULL FUNDING option:

- - Full Funding – Includes consideration for all Financial Need scholarships, Direct Unsubsidized Loan, and Graduate PLUS Loan.
    - Students under the age of 30 will need to provide parental tax information on the FAFSA.
    - If you do not submit parental information, you will not be considered for this type of award.
  - Basic Funding – If you select this option, you will not be considered for a MTM Financial Need award. Select this if you want be considered for for Direct Unsubsidized Loan and Graduate PLUS Loan.