Hiring Graduate Students (from the fiscal office perspective)

Graduate students that are hired, regardless of their funding, will need to come to the fiscal office to fill out paperwork for employment, to receive their fee waivers and to receive insurance.

Employment Paperwork

New graduate students will need to fill out all the paperwork that any new hire university employee would need to fill out in order to get them into the payroll system.  Please see Mike Bent for assistance with this paperwork.

Fee Waiver Paperwork 

In order to receive a graduate student tuition support program fee waiver each student must have a determination of eligibility form filled out in the fiscal office.  That form is then forwarded to the graduate studies office in Jesse Hall and they see that the student’s account is credited for the proper amount.

*Below is an entire section that goes into more detail on the nuts and bolts of fee waivers.

Graduate Health Insurance Subsidy Paperwork

Please refer to the graduate school website at http://gradschool.missouri.edu/financial/medical-insurance/subsidy for information on the graduate student health insurance and subsidy program.

Bookstore Discount

At the beginning of each semester, a list of all the students that are in paid assistantships is gathered and their name, student number, and department are sent to the University Bookstore.  Once the bookstore has received the list, those students will be eligible for a 10% discount on their books.

FEE WAIVERS - THE NUTS AND BOLTS

In order to receive a fee waiver for a particular semester, your students must meet the following criteria:  

• Hold a fellowship or at least a quarter-time assistantship for an entire semester with a qualifying title.

**This title is a brand new one, specifically for students who have assistantships through non-degree-granting programs that have already received fee waivers through the graduate school.  Some examples of non-degree-granting programs are IATS, ITS, and Campus Writing Program.

•  Receive at least $2,000 for that fellowship or quarter-time assistantship.
•  Be in good standing in their academic department, meaning they must have at least a 3.0 cumulative GPA.  If the department has a higher standard, the student must meet it to be eligible.

Partial Fee Waivers

If your students start an assistantship after the semester begins, or end an assistantship before the semester ends, they are still eligible for a partial waiver of their educational fees, as long as the rest of the criteria are met.

Withdrawals

Students who receive a fee waiver and withdraw from the University during the semester will lose the assistantship and, thus, the fee waiver, from the date of their withdrawal.  Although the students will receive a pro-rated fee waiver for the time that they held their assistantship, the partial waiver will not cover the entire cost of the fees.

This is something that you as a faculty member need to be aware of.  If you have a student who is receiving an assistantship and they finish their degree program in the middle of the semester and leave for another job, they will not receive the full fee waiver.  It will be pro-rated and they will owe the university.  If this occurs, you as a faculty member have the option of paying that portion that they would owe off one of your accounts.

Summer Fee Waivers

Students who receive a fee waiver for fall and winter semesters will be eligible for a waiver for their summer classes, whether they work during the summer or not.  Also, if a student starts an assistantship in the winter, and a commitment is made for the next fall, that student will also receive a waiver for the intervening summer session.

Fee waiver eligibility is limited to three years for master’s students and five years for doctoral students. 

If a student is here to work on both their master’s degree and their doctoral degree they are eligible for up to seven years of support.

GRADUATE ASSISTANTSHIPS SPONSORED BY THE DIV. OF PLANT SCIENCES

The Division of Plant Sciences offers graduate research assistantships as part of our new hire faculty packages and through a matching program. 

A typical new hire faculty package will include one PhD equivalent assistantship fully funded by the division for five years.

Matching assistantships require the faculty member to have half of the funding for the duration of the students degree program and are awarded to faculty on a competitive basis.  

The current minimum stipend for the Division of Plant Sciences graduate students working toward an M.S. degree is $16,000 and for a PhD degree it is $19,000.  This amount is reviewed annually at budget time and any changes to the amount are made effective September 1 of that year.