USA Scholarships
Professional Development Scholarship Guides
Professional Development Programs
Guides for funded professional development, leadership, and executive programs that don't lead to a degree but build skills and networks. Each guide covers eligibility, benefits, and the full application process.
AAUW Research Publication Grant 2027 - $8,000 Award
The AAUW Research Publication Grant 2027, formally the American Short-Term Research Publication Grant, pays women scholars $8,000 in a single tranche to get a research manuscript ready for publication. The money covers drafting, editing, replicating research and answering reviewers, and can also go on housing, food and dependent care while you write. All fields qualify, with STEM researchers and those working on gender issues especially encouraged. You need a doctoral or terminal degree already in hand, US citizenship or permanent residency, and sole or first authorship on the manuscript. Applications open 17 August 2026 and close 30 September 2026 at 5pm ET, with awards announced in April 2027.
Harvard Radcliffe Fellowship 2027 - $78,000 Stipend
The Harvard Radcliffe Fellowship 2027 gives scholars, scientists, writers and artists nine months in Cambridge to finish an ambitious project, on a stipend of $78,000 plus $5,000 for project expenses. Fellows take up a full-time Harvard appointment as visiting fellows, get an office or studio in Byerly Hall, full Harvard Library access, and funded Harvard undergraduate research partners. Applications for the 2027-2028 year close 10 September 2026 at 5pm ET for the humanities, social sciences, creative arts, nonfiction and journalism, and 1 October 2026 for science, engineering and mathematics. Results go out by the end of March 2027, and the residency runs 1 September 2027 to 31 May 2028.
Cullman Center Fellowship 2027 - $90,000 at the NYPL
The Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers gives fifteen people a year an office inside the New York Public Library, a $90,000 stipend, and nine months to write. Fellows work at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on Fifth Avenue from September through May, five days a week, and the project has to genuinely need those collections rather than merely benefit from the address. Academics, independent scholars, novelists, playwrights, poets and visual artists working on a book project are all welcome, and the programme is international, though your application must be in English. Two exclusions end a lot of applications early: no academic projects from post-doctoral fellows, and no graduate-school dissertation research. Applications for 2027-2028 close on 25 September 2026 at 5pm EDT, with decisions in March 2027 and the term running 7 September 2027 to 26 May 2028.
IEEE-USA Government Fellowship 2027 - $100,000 in DC
IEEE-USA has been sending engineers to Washington since 1973, and more than 150 of its US members have now spent a year advising Congress or the State Department. Fellows get a stipend of $95,000 plus a $5,000 relocation allowance, paid in two lump sums, and run from 1 September to 31 August. Three tracks are open: the Congressional Fellowship, the Congressional Electric Grid Policy Fellowship, and the Engineering and Diplomacy Fellowship at the US Department of State. Eligibility is narrow and specific. You need a PhD, or a master's plus five years of full-time professional experience, you must be a US citizen, and you must be an IEEE member in good standing. You also have to live in Washington for the year, because the work cannot be done remotely. Application materials for the 2027-2028 year have not been posted yet, and the previous cycle closed in early January.
ICASE Presidential Scholarship 2026 - Indiana Special Ed
The Indiana Council of Administrators of Special Education gives two $1,000 scholarships a year to people training to become special education administrators in Indiana. The pool is genuinely small, which is the point: you have to be accepted or already enrolled in a Director of Exceptional Needs licensing program in the state, and a current special education director has to nominate you. Nobody applies cold. The application window for this cycle opens on 1 October 2026 and closes on 30 December 2026, and what you submit is compact by scholarship standards: the application form, two letters of recommendation, and one essay answering a single question about what you intend to contribute as an administrator in special education. Applications are scored against a published rubric. If you are already teaching in an Indiana school and working towards a director's licence, this is one of the few awards written specifically for you.
Fulbright Scholar Award 2027 - UK Scholars to the USA
The Fulbright Scholar Awards send UK academics and professionals to the United States to lecture, research or both, usually for three to six months, on a monthly stipend with travel and visa support attached. Applications for the 2027-28 cycle opened on 20 July 2026 and close on 2 November 2026 at 5pm GMT, with interviews in February 2027, results in March 2027 and departures from August 2027 onwards. Six awards run under the Scholar banner, from the open All Disciplines Award to partner awards with the Royal College of Surgeons of England, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Elon University, Rutgers University-Newark and the National Archives. You need to be a UK citizen or British Overseas Territory resident, hold a PhD or equivalent professional standing, and arrange your own letter of invitation from a US host institution before you apply.
Human Rights Advocates Program 2027 - HRAP at Columbia
The Human Rights Advocates Program (HRAP) at Columbia University's Institute for the Study of Human Rights brings grassroots human rights advocates to New York for a six-month capacity-building programme built from academic coursework, skills workshops, mentoring, networking and an advocacy trip to Washington, D.C. Applications for the Fall 2027 and Spring 2028 programmes close on 15 October 2026. Read the funding line carefully before you apply, because the aggregator sites get it wrong: only a very limited number of full scholarships are awarded, and other admitted applicants are asked to cover expenses including living costs and stipend. ISHR does make every effort to secure funding for shortlisted Advocates. HRAP is for people doing the work, not for students: full-time students, academics and government officials are not considered, and applicants from high-income countries are ruled out unless they represent marginalized communities.
Yale World Fellows Program 2027 - Fully Funded
The Yale World Fellows Program brings a small group of mid-career leaders from outside the United States to Yale for four months, mid-August to mid-December, on a package that covers a living stipend, a furnished one- or two-bedroom apartment, medical insurance and round-trip international travel, with no tuition or fees. The Class of 2026 held 16 Fellows, picked from several thousand applications, and the programme has taken over 400 Fellows from 102 countries since 2002. You need to be a citizen of a country other than the United States, between five and twenty-five years into your career, fluent in English, and free to live in New Haven for the whole term. Applications for the 2027 cohort are not open yet. Nominations are, and anyone can submit one without any Yale connection.
Reginald F. Lewis Fellowship 2027 - $60,000 at HLS
The Reginald F. Lewis Fellowship for Law Teaching gives a recent law graduate a $60,000 annual stipend and a year in residence at Harvard Law School to write. The 2027 term runs 1 July 2027 through 30 June 2028, and applications close on Thursday 1 October 2026, with both letters of reference due the same day. You need a JD, LLM or SJD at the time of applying, a serious interest in legal scholarship, and a plan to go into law teaching. The Fellow prepares at least one major article for publication on a schedule agreed with the Lewis Committee, and can audit courses and attend workshops across the school. The programme was endowed in 1993 by Reginald F. Lewis, HLS class of 1968 and the first African American to build a billion-dollar company, and it exists to enhance diversity in the profession of legal educators.
UN Nippon Foundation Fellowship 2027 - Ocean Law
The United Nations-Nippon Foundation Fellowship on Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea gives mid-career government officials from developing states nine funded months split between two places. Phase one runs 24 March to 30 June 2027 at UN Headquarters in New York, working alongside the Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea. Phase two runs 1 July to 17 December 2027 as a research placement at an academic institution. The award covers a monthly stipend from the day you leave home until the day you finish, round-trip economy flights between home, New York and your host institution, Cigna health insurance, and a $600 book allowance for the second phase. Applications close on 13 September 2026 and results are announced in mid-December. You need to be between 25 and 45, hold at least a first degree, and be nominated by an authority who signs your form.
Columbia University Free Online Courses 2026 - ColumbiaX
Columbia University free online courses are published under ColumbiaX, the university's online learning initiative on edX, where every listed course can be audited at no cost and a verified certificate is available for a fee. The school page currently lists 28 courses drawn from Columbia Business School, Columbia Engineering, the Mailman School of Public Health, the history department and Teachers College, covering corporate finance, the maths behind AI, Python and data structures, pediatric HIV, child protection, climate science, US history and inclusive teaching. Nothing here behaves like a scholarship: no application form, no deadline, no committee, no GPA and no citizenship rule. Money only enters at the certificate, and edX financial assistance is the route to a discount on that fee.
UC Berkeley Free Online Courses 2027 - BerkeleyX on edX
UC Berkeley free online courses run through BerkeleyX on the edX platform, where every course can be audited at no cost and a verified certificate is available for a fee. Berkeley joined the edX consortium in 2012 and has since put more than 100 classes in front of 4 million learners across 150 countries and regions, from The Science of Happiness and Introduction to Python to Fundamentals of Economics, Academic and Business Writing and Psychedelics and the Mind. Nothing here works like a scholarship: there is no application, no deadline, no selection and no GPA, and enrolment is open all year. The closest thing to funding is edX financial assistance, which discounts the verified certificate fee for learners who would find it a hardship, applied for one course at a time. Auditing needs nothing but a free account.