Sensitive to the high cost of education, the Game Center does our best to work with our admitted graduate students to figure out a feasible financial plan. You can find the tuition & fee rate for graduate programs in Tisch School of the Arts at the Bursar.
Every admitted student, including international students, who indicate financial need on their Slideroom application will receive a financial aid package along with their admission letter. Institutional aid may be offered up to the cost of tuition and can come in the form of a Tisch School of the Arts Scholarship or a named scholarship generously sponsored by one of our partners.
For U.S. students who submit a FAFSA application, the Office of Graduate Admissions will provide you will loan options to help cover the remainder of the tuition after the initial financial aid package is sent.
Named Scholarships
Barlovento Scholarship for Women in Games
To support and encourage women who are interested in breaking into the games industry, the NYU Game Center has collaborated with MFA alum, Vanessa Briceño, to create a full-tuition scholarship for women. Funded by the Barlovento Foundation, for which Vanessa serves as the president, the scholarship is a concrete effort to combat the hostility that women receive within the industry and to welcome women’s voices in games.
There are currently no additional steps to apply – all female-identifying applicants to the MFA program will be automatically considered. The recipient is identified by the admissions committee based on a combination of merit and need.
Evo Scholarship
The NYU Game Center partnered with the Evo tournament, to create an annual scholarship to study game design at New York University. The Evo Scholarship is open to anyone who is passionate about fighting games and eSports. The scholarship is funded by subscriptions to the Evo tournament live stream and by a generous gift from world-famous fighting game champion Daigo Umehara.
In addition to selecting the Evo box on the scholarship section of application, applicants must submit a one-page statement describing their relationship to competitive games & ideas about the design of the genre.
Festival Scholarship
For talented developers who are already creating and showcasing games, the Festival Scholarship offers $25,000 towards our Game Design MFA program or Game Design BFA program. We believe that people with experience developing projects that were chosen for public showcases are in a position to maximally benefit from a degree in game design. The Festival Scholarship aims to support those creators in their pursuit of evolving the expressive potential of games. More info on the scholarship here.
To apply for the Festival Scholarship, applicants should indicate interest at the appropriate section of their application. Applicants will need to include the name of the game, name & date of the festival the game was part of, and the applicant’s role on the project.
The Take-Two Scholarship
In Fall 2019, we partnered with local game development company and longtime Game Center supporter Take-Two Interactive to create the Take-Two Scholarship. This scholarship will provide scholarship funding over the course of two years for three graduate students. Recipients of the scholarship will receive ¼ tuition scholarship in addition to regular one-on-one career advising with professionals from Take-Two. By providing both financial support alongside dedicated mentorship to these three scholars, both T2 and NYU hope to increase the visibility of women and other underrepresented minorities finding success in the world of professional game development. In addition, we anticipate this partnership will grow the number of students graduating and staying in NYC to work with AAA companies such as Take-Two and Avalanche over the next few years. NYU Game Center faculty will select the Take-Two scholars from the accepted students in the MFA program. No application is necessary to be eligible for this scholarship.