Board of Regents reverse GR 609 graduate studies course fee

The Board of Regents approved a change in graduate course fees during its Dec. 15 meeting, removing a $50 class fee introduced this fall that all graduate students had to pay for every semester they are at the university.

"The initial reasoning to switch the fee structure was that, at $50 a semester for GR 609, our average graduate student takes five or six semesters to graduate," Dean of Graduate Studies Charles McAllister said. "So we are talking about $250 or $300 worth of fee collection. That penalizes the students who are only part-time graduate students, in the sense that they take several more semesters in order to complete their degree."

Around two-thirds of Southeast's graduate students are part-time, and GR 609 was estimated to increase revenue by $67,000 per fiscal year.

"We ultimately didn't want to penalize those students or treat them any different than any other graduate student at Southeast," McAllister said. "Therefore, Graduate Council really initiated the recommendation to shift the fee from GR 609 to those three courses that I like to call the degree completion courses, GR 698, GR 699 and GR 799."

The change is considered to be "revenue neutral" to the prior fee system, meaning that the revenue gained by the university will be similar to what was practiced before the introduction of GR 609.

"We, I guess on some level, acknowledged that what we thought was a good idea at the time had some wrinkles that we didn't anticipate and, therefore, we were willing to reconsider and go with a model, after a conversation across campus, that we thought made more sense," McAllister said.

McAllister said that while Graduate Council approved the original GR 609 course fee, there seemed to be some confusion within the council on the course's intent and when the fee would be applied and when it would not.

"Some members of Graduate Council were under the impression that the $50 for GR 609 would only apply if the student was not registered in other credit-bearing courses during a particular semester," McAllister said. "And the way it was written and the way I tried to communicate it to Graduate Council was that it applied to all graduate students every semester."

The board approved that GR 698, 699 and 799 would all have a $100 course fee starting fall 2016. These three courses are the capstones for the school of graduate studies, where students get credit for defending their thesis, taking the required comprehensive exam or other specialist degree requirements for graduation.

Before the introduction of GR 609 this fall, GR 698, 699 and 799 could have a course fee equivalent to one credit hour of tuition, which could range from $300 to $500 depending on whether the student lives in or out of state. However, this fee only was applied if that student wasn't taking any other courses that semester.

"So we've kind of gone with the law of averages and tried to smooth things out," McAllister said. "And this way it is easier to explain to graduate students as well. It's $100 if you need one of those three courses."

The Board of Regents also approved that students who graduate in fall of 2016 will have their capstone fee waived due to the fact that those students had just paid the $50 GR 609 fee both fall 2015 and spring 2016. Also, students who receive a graduate assistantship will have the $100 fee paid as a benefit.

McAllister pointed out that although the fee for GR 609 was eliminated, the class will still be required for graduate students so that those students who are not enrolled in courses but are still students can be counted as such by the university.

"It's still there for enrollment tracking purposes, so all graduate students will be enrolled in GR 609 every semester," McAllister said. "It's zero-credit and will have zero fees associated with it. It remains a particular benefit to those students to stop out of graduate study for one or more semesters. GR 609 will allow them to continue to be enrolled with Southeast Missouri State University, in a sense. They will still have access to library and electronic databases. They'll still have their student email account and things of that nature."

McAllister said that after two semesters, students will stop being enrolled in GR 609 unless the university is told by the student that they are still planning on taking classes in the near future.