In-State
The University of Alabama will pay in-state tuition of eligible graduate assistants who satisfy the following conditions:
- Admitted as a degree candidate and enrolled in Graduate or Law School
- Appointed as a Graduate Teaching, Research, or Administrative Assistant and assigned to a permanently budgeted position line designated for that purpose
- Registered in accordance with Graduate School’s Minimum Registration Requirements
- Paid monthly in accordance with the approved institutional pay scale
- Maintain a B average grade (3.0) throughout the appointment (please see exceptions to this rule below)
- Assigned to activities under the supervision of the Office for Academic Affairs or the Alabama Productivity Center
- Have a Memorandum of Appointment on file in the appointing department, and
- Must begin the appointment prior to the end of the four-week drop period.
Assistants who meet these criteria and who are assigned duties of 0.50 FTE or more may receive tuition support equal to their tuition. This tuition will be paid from designated permanently budgeted tuition lines, which have been established by Academic Affairs in each college.
Those assistants assigned to duties of less than 0.50 FTE will receive tuition support at the ratio of assigned FTE to 0.50 FTE. Total tuition support is limited in all cases to full tuition for nine hours or the actual cost, whichever is less.
Requirements to maintain a B grade average will apply to students with unconditional (regular) admission status
only after earning 12 semester hours. (The former policy placed an unconditionally admitted student on academic warning after as few as 6 semester hours.)
Students with conditional admission status, in addition to students with regular admission, may hold any type of assistantship i.e. the B average grade requirement does not apply whilst they are on conditional status. All other conditions apply. However, a graduate teaching assistant holding conditional admission status who obtains a cumulative GPA of less than 3.0 prior to meeting the condition of admission will not be allowed to retain the teaching assistantship during the next term of enrollment. For example, if a conditional admit takes nine credits during the first semester of enrollment and obtains a 2.5 GPA that student may continue to take courses to meet the condition (a 3.0 average on the first 12 hours), but will not be allowed to retain the teaching assistantship. The student would be permitted to hold a research assistantship.
As indicated above, only graduate assistants paid from permanently budgeted lines allocated by Academic Affairs will qualify for tuition support from this program.
For those assistants paid from sources other than permanently budgeted positions, the source of funds used to create the position should also provide the tuition support.
During summer term, students who are appointed to assistantships under this program are not required to enroll in classes.
Please note that the following students may
not hold an assistantship:
- Students paid on an hourly scale,
- Nondegree students,
- Students who hold provisional language admission, and
- Students on academic warning.
Only graduate students are allowed to hold graduate assistantships. Students whohave not yet earned a baccalaureate, even if they are participating in programs such as the University Honors Program, are not allowed to hold graduate assistantships.
Out-of-State
For those students who are appointed as assistants under the above conditions and who have out-of-state residency status tuition support will be given on the same basis. The same limits apply in respect of the amount of tuition support available i.e. maximum nine hours or actual cost, whichever is greater. However, only those out-of-state resident assistants with FTE 0.25 and above will be eligible for out-of-state tuition support.
A special tuition break exists for out-of-state resident students for the interim and summer terms where they are appointed graduate assistants during the preceding spring semester. Regardless of whether or not they hold an appointment in the interim or summer terms, they will be entitled to receive tuition awards for the summer term that will reduce their out-of-state tuition charges to the in-state equivalent. The amount of the award will be based upon the FTE level of their spring assistantship.
General
The Provost publishes minimum stipend rates for graduate assistantships before the start of each academic year. Only assistantships paid at or above the minimum rate qualify for tuition support.
For graduate assistants paid from restricted funds, self-supporting budgets, soft money budgets, and auxiliary budgets, the source of funds used to create the position must also provide the tuition support.
If students are eligible for tuition support from third parties, those parties will be billed first. If the support from this program and a third party exceeds the total cost of tuition, the student is
not eligible to receive a cash payment for the excess amount.
International Students
Generally, all students who have provisional language admission status must complete the English Language Institute’s Intensive English Program with a minimum GPA of 3.5 in the advanced levels (Levels 4, 5, and 6) or earn a score of at least 550 on the TOEFL before they may hold any form of assistantship. However, those students who do have provisional language admission status may be approved to hold an assistantship that is externally funded through a contract or grant.
All non-native speakers of English must successfully complete the University’s International Teaching Assistant Program (ITAP) before they can hold a teaching assistantship (category 40050 and 44010 Position Classes).
Contracts and Grants
Generally, the terms and conditions of the agreement will apply to determining the tuition entitlement for graduate assistants.
In-state tuition support is available only from grant funds – permanent budgets are not available to cover in-state tuition not provided by the contract or grant.
Tuition support for out-of-state graduate assistants paid from contracts and grants administered through Office for Sponsored Programs will be charged to those contracts and grants. If the contract and/or grant does not include sufficient budget for out-of-state tuition charges, in these special cases the Graduate School will give tuition support to reduce the tuition charges to the in-state rate.
To maintain comparability with other graduate assistants, students supported under contracts and grants will be entitled to receive the same break for interim and summer out-of-state tuition where they held a graduate assistantship during the previous spring semester.
Director of Administration
July 2018
