Administrative History: Graduate Tuition Waivers

The Graduate Tuition Waiver Program is designed to promote the recruitment and retention of high quality graduate students and to enhance graduate programs. The current version of the GSSP went into effect at the beginning of the Summer Session 1998.

This program, housed in the Graduate School through the recommendation of the Provost's Ad Hoc Committee on Graduate Student Support Policy, began with the summer 1998 session and includes the policies in this handbook. An advisory committee to the Dean of the Graduate School was formed in 1998. It is composed of the executive committee of the Graduate Faculty Senate, with input from the directors of graduate studies and members of graduate student leadership organizations.

The responsibilities of this committee include the following:

1. provide general oversight of the policies, support systems and infrastructure related to campus efforts to enhance the quality of graduate education,
2. provide a forum for hearing issues/concerns related to the implementation of the Waiver Program,
3. recommend revisions to the Tuition Waiver Program,
4. review and approve department/program plans to enhance the quality of graduate programs and
5. provide annual assessment of the improvement of our graduate students and the overall effectiveness of graduate student support funding.

Changes to the Program

The Waiver Program is a dynamic process. As the program continues to be developed and refined, changes will continue to be made to the policy and regulations of the Tuition Waiver Program. The University reserves the right to make changes to this policy at any time, without notice to the students. Nothing contained in this policy is to be construed as an offer to contract.

As of FS1998, the Tuition Waiver Program Advisory committee put forth recommendations for policy clarifications for the academic year 1999-2000:

1. Beginning FS1999, the Tuition Waiver Program will no longer cover fees for students in professional programs (law, medicine and veterinary medicine).
2. Beginning FS1999, the Tuition Waiver Program will no longer provide either partial or full fee waivers for benefit-eligible (at least .75 FTE) employees of the University. Once an employee becomes benefit-eligible, they should apply for educational assistance, which pays 75 percent of their fees.
3. Non-degree-granting programs/departments must submit a proposal every 3 years, which must be recommended for approval by the Tuition Waiver Program advisory committee and approved by the Graduate Dean in order to receive Tuition Waiver Program fee waivers for the Graduate Research Assistants and Graduate Teaching Assistants they hire.
4. The amount of support the Tuition Waiver Program provides can be broken down as follows:
   • The Tuition Waiver Program will ultimately support a student for up to two degrees or seven years (14 semesters), whichever comes first. Of those two degrees, only one can be a master's degree. In the specific case of a student working toward a doctorate with a master's degree en route, the student can petition for support for an additional year he or she might need to complete both his or her degrees.
   • A dual master's degree will count as only one degree if both degrees are completed within a 3-year period.
   • Students working on a master's degree have 3 years or 6 semesters of support.
   • Students working on a doctoral degree have 5 years or 10 semesters of support.
   • Summer sessions are not considered in the total semesters of support.
5. Directors of graduate studies will be responsible for verifying that only those courses necessary for completion of the graduate degree are covered by the Tuition Waiver Program. The Graduate School will distribute forms for this verification each semester (Appendix A).

Further changes recommended by the Committee will be disseminated as they are approved.