Enrollment Polices & TA/RA Contracts
Please register for courses as soon as possible for the following term. Continuous Enrollment is required of doctoral students who have completed their preliminary examination requirements and may be required of all pre-candidate international students.
Enrollment Policies
As defined by the Graduate College, a full-time graduate student is enrolled for a minimum of 9 credit hours in the Fall and Spring Semesters (3 credits in Summer, although registration for summer is optional in most situations).
Minimum Graduate College Enrollment Requirements:
- 8 credits minimum for domestic and international graduate students with a 50% research or teaching assistantship
- 9 credits minimum for international students with a 0-49% assistantship
- 12 credit hours for RTG Fellowship awardees
- 9 credit hours for Graduate College Fellowship or Board of Trustees Tuition and Fee Waiver holders (3-5 credits in Summer)
CTA U-PASS Enrollment Requirement
The current minimum registration requirement to obtain the CTA U-PASS is 6 credit hours.
Zero Credit Hour Registration is an option available to students who have completed all coursework, examinations, and all degree requirements EXCEPT the doctoral thesis. This requires a Graduate Student Petition Form approved by the DGS and submitted to the Graduate College for final approval.
Graduate students may take one semester and an adjoining summer session off (i.e. Spring and Summer, or, Summer and Fall) without formal leave approval from the Graduate College, and still hold “continuing student status” from the university.
Exceptions are:
- international students whose visas require continuous registration (F-1 and J-1)
- doctoral students who are taking or who have passed their preliminary exams
- students awarded a fellowship for the term of proposed leave
- students with an assistantship appointment or tuition and service-fee waiver for the term of proposed leave (unless the assistantship or waiver is withdrawn)
Managing your Teaching and Research Assistantship Contracts
Teaching and Research Assistants with 25-67% appointments are eligible for the assistantship tuition and fee waiver.
If you do not register for classes or have less than the required credit hours for your TA or RA contract, you will receive a full-tuition bill, and have to be reinstated.
It is critical that you read and manage your hiring contracts. If you accept another offer, please be sure to turn in a completed Resignation Release Form to our departments Human Resources Associate for the original offer.
For any new contract, your timeliness in completing and returning the document as instructed is also critical.
Please return BOTH pages of your contract, or it will not be valid.
Due to the high volume of contracts being circulated at any given time, your attention to detail is immensely helpful, and greatly appreciated.