Starting this year, Texas A&M doctoral students will be allowed to pursue their program for seven calendar years before out-of-state tuition is charged. Prior to these changes, students would be charged out-of-state tuition after they surpassed 99 credit hours.
“The bottom line is that in the past, the Texas legislature put forth a law that any student who exceeded 99 hours will not be covered,” said Clifton Griffin, assistant dean of Graduate Student Life. “It also allowed the University to charge out-of-state tuition when a student hit his or her 100th hour. If you don’t do this, the legislature sees it as a missed opportunity to bring in revenue.”
Part-time students can have up to 99 hours in the seven-year period until an out-of-state charge is implemented. Griffin said the University has decided that there was such a disincentive, especially in the hard sciences, to make a change.
“We are at a competitive disadvantage with other schools, like the University of Texas, who has already implemented the change,” Griffin said.
Griffin said there are several experiments in the hard sciences that take longer than others. Students have not complained over the years, he said, but rather asked the department if there is anything that can be done.
Griffin said the department gave students the opportunity to apply for individual exemption. These exemptions were stringent and were only given for a catastrophic event, such as a laboratory building burning down.
“I think the change has been implemented because the pursuit of doctoral studies often involves extensive research that can take many years to effectively complete,” said Sharra Durham, who is pursuing a Ph.D. in educational administration with an emphasis on higher education.
The University has been working hard in the past few years, she said, to show graduate students that they are valued and understood by the institution.
“This is a good thing because it allows for the part-time and full-time division,” said Alex Fleming, a graduate student in visualization sciences.
Fleming said this cuts out any chance of a loophole. He said as long as a student is actively pursuing a goal and not abusing the extra time given to them, then the outcome will be good.
“There have been a lot of students and faculty in the past 10 days calling in and saying thank goodness for the change,” Griffin said.