The Campus Initiated Tuition Increase allocated 9.4 percent of the increase to the Graduate Student Support Plan, so that the program can continue to support the same number of students it has in the past.
“The support plan is a mechanism that ensures that all full-time fully supported graduate students at N.C. State receive the same set of tuition support benefits and health insurance benefits,” Rick Liston, the assistant dean for operations and fiscal affairs of the graduate school, said.
GSSP, which started in the fall of 1997, according to Liston, provides full payment for in-state and out-of-state graduate students and international graduate students, as well as providing them with basic health insurance.
According to Liston, the program is used to make sure the University remains competitive in attracting “high caliber graduate students.”
Liston said the GSSP needs the tuition increase to be able to continue to support its students financially.
“The reasons for allocating part of the tuition increase to [GSSP] is the same as financial aid,” he said.
Liston said the increase in tuition will hold the graduate students under the program “harmless,” especially since those in charge of the program do not want to cut the number of students they support, or reduce the amount of tuition the program covers for those students.
“If [the University] increases the amount of tuition it charges … and you’re sponsored, if your sponsor doesn’t pay that increase for you, you would be at a disadvantage,” he said.
GSSP is a form of financial aid, according to Liston, but students who are not under GSSP or who do not qualify, can still apply for financial aid separately.
Ben Baranowski, a graduate teaching and research assistant, said he benefits from GSSP.
“I get tuition waived. I get health insurance for myself, not including any dependents…and I get a salary, as well,” he said.
Baranowski said there are certain requirements he has to fulfill to continue to be qualified for the program, such as maintaining a 3.0 grade point average, maintaining full-time graduate status until he takes the preliminary exams and working for a certain number of hours where he must be paid through University payroll at least $667 per month as a part of his graduate teaching and research assistantship.
According to Baranowski, the tuition at NCSU is comparable to other universities, but what attracted him to the program was his advisor who was fairly young, new to the field and “had funding for me as a student.”
Liston said GSSP is part of a bigger plan for the University to “improve the quality of graduate education, improve the quality of graduate students and increase the number of graduate students.”
Heather Shay, a graduate teaching assistant, said there were some concerns about new enrollment of students with the tuition increase.
“The way the money increase is allocated is more than enough for currently enrolled students,” she said.
Liston said with GSSP, the graduate school is trying to help with the student enrollment plan by increasing the number of students when they can get more funding.
Shay, who said she was attracted to the program because it was the best offer she received from the universities that accepted her, said she thinks it would be good if GSSP received more funding to support more graduate students, but that she doesn’t know if the University as a whole could support that.
