A new tuition remission policy will go into effect July 1, Jo Rae Wright, vice provost and dean of the Graduate School announced to the Graduate and Professional Student Council at its meeting Tuesday night.
Currently, the majority of Ph. D. students receive a scholarship for tuition, but student research assistants pay out of pocket or through payroll deductions for registration, recreation and health fees. This new policy redistributes graduate students' financial packages, resulting in the University covering those expenses by lowering the assistants' salaries.
"If you are a research assistant, you have a bursar payment of about $8,500," Wright explained. "Next year, beginning in July, your salary will drop and we will pay your tuition remission directly. This is good for you because your taxable salary goes down, and the money in your pocket stays the same."
The policy will only affect Ph. D. students, most of whom will not experience direct change. If anything, Wright said, students will merely benefit.
Wright presented a proposal for tuition remission to the Academic Council in late September. She noted then that the policy would cost the University a maximum of $2 million a year, The Chronicle reported Sept. 26.
"Bottom line, this is a good thing for you," she said. "I don't see anything that could be a downside for students. We may see a financial downside for the institution but we're managing it."
One of Wright's top priorities for 2009 is development and fundraising for the Graduate School to cover programs such as health insurance for all students. The total cost of covering students' health insurance premiums is about $15 million for the next several years. Although the University has experienced a decrease in the endowment, graduate school finances are stable, Wright said. She anticipates admitting as many students this year as the last, even with this year's 15 percent increase in applications.
"We are fully committed to helping our Duke students," Wright said. "I am trying as hard as I can to continue to increase stipends to the degree that I feel is fiscally responsible."
In other business:
GPSC's Academic Officer Sara Salahi, a second-year Ph. D. student in biomedical engineering, clarified the University's criteria for earning a master's degree. The absence of a comprehensive list of master's degrees is partially the reason for the confusion regarding the criteria.
Salahi explained that the University typically funds only one master's degree per student, even if course work for multiple degrees overlap.
"I can't get three science degrees just because the course work is the same," Salahi said. "Duke wants to value the master's degree by making them selective."
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.