I am looking for universities that have a 3 credit-hour course while a student is in candidacy status that allows them to be a full-time student. In a previous post, scarvalho@ua.edu made the following comments which is inline with what I am seeking: ” I will also tell you that trying to compare candidacy hours, from one school to another, may not be productive because how we each bill for dissertation hours is really a billing and continuous-enrollment question, not an academic-credit-hours question. So it differs drastically, from 2 to 12 credits per semester at different schools.”
Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.
UMBC has something called “university credits” that count toward full-time enrollment but don’t have tuition and don’t count toward degree completion. These credits also don’t count toward financial aid eligibility since they do not count toward the degree. We use these for students who have GA appointments so they are getting “credit” for the time commitment of their GA toward full-time status. See https://gradschool.umbc.edu/funding/assistantships/registration/
All PhD students who have reached candidacy register for 9 credits of PhD dissertation research. This makes them full-time. However they are only charged the equivalent of 2 credits of tuition and fees. PhD students who are pre-candidacy register for a variable credit course that is billed at 1/3 (3 credits are billed at the equivalent of 1 credit) so that a student registered full-time for 9 credits is only billed at the rate of 3 credits. Similarly master’s thesis credits are billed at 1/2 (2 credits are billed at the rate of 1 credit). There is a long and complicated path that got us to this point and periodically someone suggests that we revisit it. But those are some ways to have students in candidacy get counted as full-time. Happy to discuss the details with you if that would be helpful.
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