MFA Assistantships and Teaching Duties: What the Work Involves

At many campus-based MFA programs, the stipend that makes up a "fully funded" offer is not a gift but a salary. You earn it by teaching undergraduates, tutoring in a writing center or doing other work for the department. That work shapes your time in the program as much as the workshop does. This guide explains how assistantships are structured, what you are likely to teach, how much time it takes and which questions to ask before you accept an offer.

Fellowship, assistantship, or both

Funding in an MFA offer generally comes in two forms:

• Fellowships pay a stipend with no work attached. Some programs use a fellowship for the first year so new students can concentrate on writing.
• Assistantships pay you for work. A teaching assistantship (often called a TA, GTA, GSI or associate instructor) usually comes with a tuition waiver and health coverage as well as the stipend.

Many packages combine the two across the program. The University of Virginia states that students admitted for 2026–27 have no teaching obligation in the first year, then teach one creative writing workshop each semester in the second year. The University of Texas at Austin's New Writers Project describes the reverse pattern at the end of the degree: students teach during their first five semesters and spend the final semester on a non-working fellowship. For how teaching fits into the larger funding picture, see understanding fully funded MFA programs.

How teaching loads are stated

Programs describe workload in several ways, which makes direct comparison tricky.

Courses per term. Ohio State states that graduate teaching associates teach one course per term during the regular academic year. Michigan's second-year Graduate Student Instructors teach one undergraduate course per semester.

Courses per year. The University of South Carolina describes a load of three courses per academic year, split as one in one semester and two in the other. Indiana University says associate instructors normally teach two to three courses a year, eight courses over three years, including at least five creative writing workshops.

Hours per week or FTE. Colorado State defines an assistantship as a half-time position of 20 hours per week. Oregon offers each incoming student a teaching appointment at 0.49 full-time equivalency. Stony Brook states that a full funding line carries a 15–20 hour weekly workload and a half line 8–10 hours.

A load of "one course per term" can mean very different weekly hours depending on class size, grading and preparation. Ask current students how many hours the work actually takes in a typical week.

What you might teach

MFA students do not always teach creative writing, especially at first. Common assignments include:

• First-year composition. Many programs start teaching assistants in the university's writing program. Wisconsin's second-year students teach freshman composition, and Arkansas states that all first-year MFA students teach Composition I.
• Introductory creative writing. Johns Hopkins students begin teaching undergraduate fiction and poetry in the spring of their first year. Washington University in St. Louis has students lead two introductory creative writing classes in their own genre in the second year.
• Literature or other courses. Some departments assign literature, rhetoric or lecture-course sections.
• Non-classroom work. Tutoring in a writing center, assisting a large lecture course, or working on a literary magazine.

Assignments often shift over time. Louisiana State describes a common progression: assisting in a large lecture course in the first year, teaching composition in the second and an introductory creative writing class in the third.

Some programs make creative writing teaching competitive. The University of Arizona states that MFA students may teach 200-level creative writing courses by application each year. If teaching creative writing matters to you, check whether it is assigned, available by application, or not offered.

Training before and during teaching

Programs usually require preparation before you lead a class, and the time it takes comes on top of the teaching itself. Examples from official pages:

• Arizona requires a 10-day training in August before the first semester of teaching, plus a first-semester course.
• Johns Hopkins students take a pedagogy course in their first semester before they teach.
• Indiana ties continued funding to passing required pedagogy courses.
• Oregon requires completing the English department's training program in the first year to qualify for second-year composition teaching.

Pedagogy courses may or may not count toward your degree credits. Check the curriculum so you know whether training adds to your course load.

Teaching, writing time and the program's length

Teaching takes time away from writing, and programs balance this differently. A two-year MFA with teaching in both years leaves less unstructured writing time than one with a teaching-free first year. A three-year program might spread a similar number of courses over more terms. Neither arrangement is better in general; the question is which fits how you work.

Teaching experience can also be part of the degree. Cornell, for example, makes at least one year of supervised teaching a program requirement. If you want to teach after the MFA, look at whether you will teach creative writing or only composition, and whether mentoring is built in. No program can promise a teaching job afterward.

Low-residency and fully online MFAs work differently. Paid assistantships are uncommon among the low-residency and online programs we list, though some include teaching seminars or practica, such as the teaching seminar Spalding offers upper-level students at residency. See fully online vs. low-residency MFA for how those formats are structured.

Questions to ask about an assistantship

Before you accept, get written answers to:

1. How many courses per term, in which years, and is there a teaching-free term?
2. What will you teach: composition, creative writing, literature, tutoring?
3. Is the appointment defined in hours or FTE, and how many hours do current students report?
4. What training is required, and does it carry credit?
5. Is the stipend tied to teaching, so that losing the appointment means losing the stipend?
6. What conditions apply to renewal from year to year?
7. Is summer teaching optional, and is it paid separately?

Teaching terms are set for each admissions cycle and can change. Our program pages summarize what each program publishes; for example, see the listings for Ohio State and Indiana University. Confirm everything on the program's official pages before you decide. Our funding methodology explains how we classify the packages that include teaching.