Forms, Policies & Procedures

Graduate Tuition Policy

1. SCOPE OF POLICY
   This policy sets forth graduate tuition requirements for proposals and awards, and applies to all departments, faculty, and staff involved in externally sponsored research at the University of Delaware.
2. POLICY STATEMENT
   The Research Office requires graduate tuition to be budgeted to grants and contracts at a minimum rate of 20% of the full-time tuition at the program rate for the fall and spring semesters. Exceptions to this policy may be granted under specific circumstances as outlined per this policy.
3. POLICY STANDARDS AND PROCEDURES
   1. Budgeting Requirements
      1. Graduate tuition must be budgeted as a direct charge to all grants and contracts at a minimum rate of 20% of the full-time tuition at the program rate for the fall and spring semesters.
      2. Full tuition is considered 9 credit hours per semester at the program rate.
         1. If a graduate student is being budgeted at less than 100% of their stipend, the rate of the tuition should be prorated proportionately.
            1. i. For example, for a student budgeted at 20% of their stipend, a minimum of 20% of the tuition should be budgeted on the proposal. For a student budgeted at 50% of their stipend, a minimum of 20% and up to 50% of the tuition may be budgeted on the proposal.
         2. If a sponsor provides a stated amount for cost of education, the full amount as stated by the sponsor may be budgeted.
   2. Policy Exception Requests
      1. Exceptions to this policy may be granted with approval of both the PI’s Dean (or designee) and the Vice President for Research, Scholarship, and Innovation (or designee) in cases where:
         1. the funding organization has a written policy precluding or limiting the charging of graduate tuition to awards, or
         2. the total funding available to the PI(s) for the project is less than $75,000 per year.
      2. Exception Requests During Proposal Submission: A request for an exception to the graduate tuition policy should be processed via the Proposal Approval Summary Webform.
         1. If the request is due to a written sponsor policy, the sponsor policy should be attached to the UD Financials: PeopleSoft Proposal Attachments page using the naming convention “[ProposalID]_Tuition_other”. This will feed into the webform for review.
         2. If the request is for an exception is due to the PI project being less than $75,000, the Dean (or designee) and the Vice President for Research, Scholarship, and Innovation (or designee) will review and approve the exception via the proposal approval form routing prior to submission
      3. Exceptions Requests During Award Establishment: If a proposal that did not originally meet the exception criteria is subsequently awarded for less than $75,000 per year, an email approval from the Dean (or designee) should be routed to the Contract & Grants Specialist during award establishment. The request for an exception will be sent to Vice President for Research, Scholarship and Innovation (or designee) for review and approval.
   3. Post-Award Requirements
      1. The allocation of tuition costs must be allowable per the award guidelines and must not exceed the distribution of effort as reported through salary charges.
      2. Any re-budgeting of graduate student stipends should include the proportionate re-budgeting of tuition.
      3. Department/college research administrators should routinely reconcile tuition expenses for fiscal compliance.
      4. The Research Office will review tuition expenses during the closeout process for the fall and spring semesters referencing the following student salary expense account codes:
         1. 122600 GRADUATE ASSISTANT (O/H CHARGE)
         2. 122610 GRADUATE TRAINEES
         3. 122700 GRADUATE FELLOW
         4. 126900 GRAD STDT-ENROLLED < 1/2 TIME