To: Deans, Chairs, Directors of Graduate Studies, Student Services Managers, Business Managers
From: Suzanne Barbour, Dean of The Graduate School; Beverly Wyrick, Director of Finance and Administration
We are writing to provide a reminder about the policy regarding payment of mandatory fees for graduate students. The full amount of mandatory student fees must be provided to all eligible students. To be eligible, graduate students must
- be appointed as a teaching assistant, research assistant, or fellow/trainee,
- receive the minimum stipend, tuition support, and
- be in good standing in their graduate program.
If the campus unit funding the stipend is not the student’s home campus unit, the hiring campus unit cannot pass these fees on to the student’s home campus unit. In addition, the student’s stipend cannot be increased to cover the full fee amount or any portion of fees, nor can the remaining balance be left for the student to pay. The full amount of mandatory fees must be entered in GradStar on allowable chartfield strings.
For students funded by state resources:
- Year Three and going forward (AY 2021-22): The Provost/Center will cover 25% of the cost, The Graduate School will cover 25% of the cost, and the campus unit funding the stipend will be responsible for 50% of the cost. The chartfield string will populate automatically in GradStar based on the student’s stipend. The program codes are as follows:
- Provost: EJ136
- Graduate School: EJ143
- Department: EJ144
If you are tracking these expenses with your own departmental Program Code, please consider using one of the cost code fields instead so that central offices can track the fee payments accurately.
For students funded by non-state resources:
The source of stipend is responsible for the full amount of mandatory fees charged to eligible students, except in the case of federal grants.
Federal grants (source 49000): for students funded by federal grants, the allowable portion of fees will be charged to the grant per guidelines provided by OSR and based on federal regulations. If the grant does not have sufficient budget to cover the allowable fees, it is the responsibility of the campus unit funding the student to cover the costs using a different source. The unallowable portion must also be covered by the campus unit funding the student using a different allowable source.
Each academic year, mandatory student fees will be reviewed by OSR to determine allowable versus unallowable fees. The GradStar system will populate the allowable portion of fees for grants, and the user will then add an additional row to pay the remaining balance from another source.
Private funds (donor, trust): The source of stipend is responsible for the full amount of mandatory fees charged to eligible students. The department may use other allowable sources for students funded by private funds.
All questions can be addressed to The Graduate School, Beverly Wyrick, bwyrick@email.unc.edu