The Curriculum admits about six M.A. students per year; there are usually about 20 in residence at any time. Most receive some form of financial aid through Merit Assistantships awarded by the Graduate School, Research Assistantships, and Work-Study Fellowships. These awards are frequently coupled with in-state tuition remissions. In return for this aid, most students work in the Southern Folklife Collection, where they gain valuable archival experience by accessing, indexing, and preserving materials, and by responding to public inquiries. The Curriculum has also developed three special funds for graduate research: The Archie Green Fund for Occupational Folklife Studies, the Daniel Patterson Fund for Folklife Fieldwork, and the D.K. Wilgus Fellowship in Comparative Ballad and Folksong Study. While there are currently no Teaching Assistantships in Folklore, second-year master’s students can apply for TA’s in the English Department and the Writing Center.

Most of our graduates currently enter the field of public folklore, though a sizable minority go on to the Ph.D. (in American Studies, Communications Studies, Anthropology, English, Folklore, History, or Public Health). Graduates from this latter group currently teach at universities ranging from Emory to Harvard to the University of Wisconsin. Those entering the public arena work in an extraordinary variety of jobs, working for such organizations as the American Folklife Center, the Oregon Folklife Program, the National Task Force on Folk Arts in Education, the Brooklyn Children’s Museum, the N.C. Arts Council, Old Sturbridge Village, and the N.C. Museum of History.