Chancellor’s Doctoral Incentive Program

The Chancellor’s Doctoral Incentive Program (CDIP) provides student loans to doctoral students who show promise of teaching within the CSU system and offers loan forgiveness to those who obtain a CSU instructional position. 

CDIP participants may borrow up to $10,000 per year up to a total of $30,000 within a five-year period while they are enrolled full-time in a doctoral program at an approved, accredited institution. If the participant is hired to a full-time instructional faculty position at a CSU campus, the loan will be canceled at a rate of 20 percent of the original loan amount, plus interest, for each year of full-time teaching in the CSU. Recipients who do not obtain a CSU instructional faculty position will pay back the loan according to a 15-year schedule. See here for more information about the loan. 

Each applicant is required to have a full-time tenured/tenure-track CSU faculty advisor who will provide professional mentoring and networking opportunities throughout the student's educational experience. Mentors may be eligible for additional support, such as funding to accompany their student to conferences. 

Established in 1987, the CSU CDIP is the largest program of its kind in the United States. As of June 2018 the program has loaned $51 million to over 2,100 doctoral students enrolled in universities throughout the nation, and 1,281 of these participants have successfully earned doctoral degrees. Among participants who have earned their doctoral degrees, 769 (60 percent) have subsequently obtained employment in CSU instructional faculty positions.

Who is eligible to apply?

• Anyone interested in doctoral study, including lecturers without terminal degrees, current MA and MFA students, and undergraduate seniors may apply for CDIP.
• The program is open to applicants who will be new or continuing full-time students in doctoral programs at regionally accredited universities anywhere within the United States.
• Applicants are not required to have attended the CSU nor to have been accepted in a doctoral program at the time of their application.
• Each applicant is required to have a full-time tenured/tenure-track CSU faculty advisor who will provide professional mentoring and networking opportunities throughout the student’s educational experience.

Students interested in applying for the 2023-2024 CDIP are required to sign up for an informational workshop.