Questions have surfaced recently concerning payments to graduate students and related tuition and fees. It is essential that we use this coding and terminology in dealing with these types of transactions. Otherwise we could have problems with both funding agencies and the Internal Revenue Service.

Definitions:

Research Assistants
If a graduate student is working on a research project as a research assistant, they are considered an employee. The graduate student must be performing service on the project and an employee-employer relationship must exist.

All research assistants must be paid through a student appointment form and the salary will be paid within the 2350-2388 object code range as appropriate.

Tuition and fees paid for research assistants are considered a fringe benefit and should be called a fee remission and paid with the 5400 object code. Full fee remissions are mandatory (less the amount of the dedicated fee paid by the student) for a maximum of 30 hours per year if the appointment is 50% or greater and requires teaching or research activities.

Schools may award fee remissions to graduate student employees appointed at less than 50% FTE (less the dedicated fee paid by the student) but the fee remission cannot be charged to sponsored programs.

Fellowships
If a graduate student is being paid for non-service purposes and no employee-employer relationship exists, the payment is considered a fellowship. Postdoctoral students from all campuses are paid under object code 5821 based on the fellowship award form initiated by the department and submitted to Bloomington Payroll. Bloomington Payroll also processes payments to pre-doctoral students (degree seeking) for all campuses except Bloomington under object code 5820. Departments in Bloomington submit the pre-doctoral (degree seeking) forms electronically to the FAMS/BARS system for payment.

On sponsored contract and grant accounts, only training or fellowship grants can pay fellowships.

Tuition and fees paid for fellowships are considered a non-service award and should be called a fee scholarship. These are paid through the FAMS/BARS systems. The object code to be used is 5870.