Anna Steensma and Emma Murphy are first-year MSW students at the Brown School. Steensma has a health concentration along with a violence and injury prevention specialization, and Murphy has a mental health concentration (Millie Wolff and Bri Nitsberg | Staff Photographer and Managing Photo Editor).

WashU’s Brown School will be the first in the nation to fully fund practicum credits and offer living stipends for all Master of Social Work (MSW) students starting this upcoming fall semester. The Practicum Support Award will cover the costs of both the foundation and concentration practicums, totaling 960 hours needed to complete WashU’s MSW.

According to Tyler De Shon, associate dean for academic affairs and enrollment management at the Brown School, the new award covering practicums tuition will translate to approximately $15,000 of tuition coverage for a full-time MSW student. Additionally, he wrote in an email to Student Life that each student will also receive a $500 living stipend each month during the fall and spring semesters.

The financial stresses of unpaid practicums are pervasive amongst social work students, as this fieldwork is a graduation requirement for both a bachelor’s and master’s in the field. For students hoping to become clinical social workers, a master’s is mandatory in every U.S. state. This year at WashU, a full-time MSW student’s annual cost of attendance, which includes tuition, housing, food, and more, totals $77,922.

Anna Steensma, first-year MSW student at the Brown School, said that given these financial stressors, the stipend will be instrumental for her.

“I’m very transparent about how I fund my school because I don’t think there’s enough transparency about that,” Steensma said. “The only reason I’m able to attend school is because of student loans. I do have some scholarships, I’m very grateful for them, but federal student loans are the only reason I’m here. It’s amazing that the dean and the rest of the higher-ups at the Brown School recognize that [tuition] is a lot of money for anyone to be paying.”

According to Fortune, many MSW students rely on loans to finance their education. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) cited the median pay for social workers in 2024 as $61,330, with lower and upper bounds of $41,580 and $99,500, respectively. 

In 2017, George Washington University Health Workforce Institute and School of Nursing reported that the field has experienced profound growth, a trend expected to continue well into the 2030s, according to the BLS. Many students going into social work pursue a master’s degree to further their career goals, despite the high cost. 

According to De Shon, a “relatively small portion” of MSW students at WashU were already receiving financial aid for their practicum through the Practicum Support Award, which was $2,500 for the first two semesters they completed their practicum. 

De Shon further clarified that the new award system has replaced any previous practicum support.

“Students who may have received awards for practicum support in the past will now receive the same benefits as all MSW students under the new model beginning in fall 2026,” De Shon wrote in an email to Student Life. “These benefits are in addition to any scholarships students receive. Under the previous system, practicum support came from existing scholarship funds. Under the new system, both the stipend and practicum tuition coverage are new, added benefits.”

De Shon said the new award is not tied to tuition increases and that overall tuition increases are made at the University level.

First-year MSW student Emma Murphy said that her having an additionally funded semester has benefited her. 

“Honestly, when I first heard the news about the Brown School funding practicums, I wondered, ‘Oh, is this just a publicity thing?’” Murphy said. “I was skeptical, and I thought this might just be a new name for the already-existing financial assistance for practicum. And in some regards, that is a little bit of it. The amount of money that I am getting this semester versus next semester isn’t actually changing at all. However, this new award is adding financial support to my final spring semester, as well as some tuition assistance that I didn’t expect.”

Murphy also said that, given the Brown School’s prestige in the field of social work, she hopes the decision will influence other social work schools to fund their practicums. 

“I’m grateful for whatever they’ll give us,” Murphy said. “Anything’s better than where we were at, and this is a big step. I feel like WashU has a lot of sway [with its MSW program]. They have prestige, so I’m hopeful that by taking this step, it expands more broadly across the nation.”

Steensma said that, even though some may think $500 a month seems little, for her, it will make a big impact.

“Some people may say, ‘Well, what’s that going to pay for?’ For me, that takes care of more than half of my portion of rent. It’s more than I can say any other school I’ve attended has done,” Steensma said.

Neirdorff Family and Centene Corporation Dean of the Brown School, Dorian Traube, said the funding was made possible through multiple efforts.

“It was a combination of University resources and a number of donors,” Traube said. “No one does something like this on their own.” 

Traube went on to state that the entire WashU community has been very supportive of the Brown School and its work — a relationship that is rare in the academic world, according to the dean. WashU adopted “institution-wide” commitments to building up the region it resides within through economic, educational, and health-related avenues, calling the initiative “In St Louis, For St. Louis.” 

“The Brown School is central to WashU,” Traube said. “‘In St. Louis, For St. Louis’ is a very social work perspective.”

She also shared that the new funding will not affect the number of accepted students to the Brown School. In fact, Traube hopes to grow the program to 200 students. 

The Brown School’s mission to continually support students will not end here. Traube shared that her personal “north star” is for the Brown School to be completely tuition-free by the end of her tenure as dean. 

Lorien Carter, MSW graduate of the Brown School and now a professor of practice, feels that the new funding will allow MSW students to take part more deeply in the Brown School social scene, as she did, instead of missing out on the community due to having to support themselves financially. 

“There is something really special about the community that gets built here,” Carter said. 

Carter also expressed hope that financial stress would have less of an impact on choosing practicum sites and would help improve students’ academic experience.

“The agencies [that MSW students complete practicums at] are still able to get the support that they need … [and] our students still get to ask for learning opportunities because the funding is coming from the Brown School,” Carter said. “Students … won’t be sacrificing learning for laboring.”

Steensma said she wants to go into hospital work to support victims of interpersonal violence after graduating. She said the Brown School’s support is why she’s able to reach her goals.

“I really want to work in a hospital. I’m really passionate about domestic violence, or interpersonal violence,” Steensma said. “I’m a survivor myself, and I want to work on bridging the gap between survivors receiving services at hospitals and hospitals giving them the services that they deserve. I’m really grateful that the Brown School has the health track, and that’s also what attracted me. I honestly, at the end of the day, owe everything professionally to the Brown School.”