Terminal grad fees fall slightly

March 10, 2010, 1:11 a.m.

Tuition for some graduate students will go in an unexpected direction starting this fall: down.

While tuition for undergraduates rose again this year, rates for a segment of the graduate school population will actually decrease by almost 10 percent. Beginning in the academic year 2010-11, rates for graduate students with terminal graduate registration (TGR) status will decrease by 8.8 percent, to $2,517 per quarter from $2,760.

Vice Provost for Graduate Education Patricia Gumport said her office expects that the decrease will benefit approximately 1,300 graduate students across a number of schools and programs. Those with TGR status are students late in their graduate education who have completed all of their coursework and degree requirements.

Chris Golde, associate vice provost for graduate education, noted the change “affects almost exclusively the Ph.D. students, though a few M.A. students may be the beneficiaries of this.”

Gumport said she was pleased to announce the move.

“I know of no other peer institution that has a tuition decrease, let alone one that’s this substantial,” Gumport said. “And it’s at a critical phase of their doctoral study, so it’s helping the students, but it’s also relieving some pressure on the departments and the faculty who cover their tuition in these later stages of their Ph.D. programs.”

The TGR tuition rate had remained constant for the past three years and was set to remain at that level for a fourth. Impetus for the decrease came with the announcement of an increase in the minimum salary for research assistants and teaching assistants, which are provided by faculty and departments.

“We’re especially concerned about students that are at the minimum, just so they can make ends meet,” Gumport said. “So we increased the minimum [research assistant and teaching assistant] salary by five percent, knowing that that was going to put more pressure on the other parts of the University that pay them.”

The new TGR rate will also be pegged to the tuition level for graduate students enrolled for one to three units. The rate will rise in line with that rate in future academic years, which Gumport said will provide a measure of predictability.

“By tagging it to the actual one-to-three-unit standard tuition, people around the University can do their budget projections much more predictably,” Gumport said.

Graduate Student Council Co-Chair Nanna Notthoff, a Ph.D. student in psychology, called the move a “significant improvement.”

“I think it will have an impact,” Notthoff said. “I think it will remain to be seen how meaningful it is.”

Graduate students can request TGR status when they have successfully “completed all required courses and degree requirements other than the University oral exam and dissertation, completed 135 units and submitted a Doctoral Dissertation Reading Committee form,” according to the University’s graduate tuition categories.

Provost John Etchemendy announced the decrease at Thursday’s Faculty Senate meeting.

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