Arts and Sciences Budget Office: NRTDWs

MEMORANDUM

A&S Chairs and Directors:

A number of you have asked how to proceed with graduate-student admissions and NRTDW allocations in view of the Vice Chancellor's new non-resident tuition differential waiver (NRTDW) program. The goal of the program is to increase the number of non-resident graduate students without reducing the number of resident graduate students. In addition, the program will allow departments to admit the very best graduate students regardless of residency as they increase their graduate student enrollments. The difficulty, of course, is in monitoring the numbers of resident vs. non-resident graduate students across the College as departments admit new graduate students. Such monitoring simply isn't possible. Therefore, you should feel free to offer as many NRTDWs as you have qualified non-resident applicants, but please keep the resident/non-resident constraint in mind. I.e., we want to avoid substituting non-resident for resident graduate students.

There are several ways we can increase the number of qualified non-resident graduate students without reducing the number of resident students. First, where appropriate, consider substituting graduate student TAs and GPTIs for other forms of instructional support, such as honorarium lecturers. Please consult with your associate dean before doing this. Second, faculty with research grants can consider substituting graduate student RAs for other forms of research support, such as post-docs and technicians. Clearly, this isn't always feasible, but it may be in some cases now that the non-resident tuition cost to the grant is reduced. Third, if the non-resident students are eligible to have their status changed to in-state residence after one year, it will help avoid a reduction in resident graduate students in the long term.

It is essential to keep in mind that we have not received an increase in TA or GPTI funds to go along with the increase in NRTDWs. Therefore, you cannot offer NRTDWs for TA or GPTI lines that don't exist unless you are doing the sort of substitution referred to above. Again, please confer with your associate dean if you have questions about this.

Peter