Senate Bill 0809-11
UNIVERSITY SENATE
UNIVERSITY AT ALBANY
STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
Introduced by:
Graduate Academic Council
Undergraduate Academic Council
Date:
March 4, 2009
PROPOSAL TO AMEND UNIVERSITY POLICY PERTAINING TO
COMBINED BACCALAUREATE-MASTER'S DEGREE PROGRAMS
IT IS HEREBY PROPOSED THAT THE FOLLOWING BE ADOPTED:
1.
That the University Senate approves the attached policy amendment as approved
by the Graduate and Undergraduate Academic Councils.
2.
That this proposal be forwarded to the President for approval.
Proposed Revision to Billing Policy of Bachelor’s Master’s Students
http://www.albany.edu/graduatebulletin/requirements_combined_baccalaureate_masters.htm
http://www.albany.edu/undergraduate_bulletin/joint_degree.html
Current version of bachelor’s-master’s policy:
Admissions and Administrative Procedures
2.
Although admitted to an integrated degree program, students will be considered as undergraduate
students for the purposes of tuition, financial aid, and headcount identification until completion of
120 credits of satisfactory work. Upon meeting that requirement, students will be considered
graduate students for purposes of tuition, headcount identification, and eligibility for graduate
assistantships, fellowships, and loans. A graduate transcript will be initiated for the students at the
120 credit-hour threshold
Proposed Revision to bachelor’s-master’s policy
Admissions and Administrative Procedures
2.
Although admitted to an integrated degree program, students will be considered as undergraduate
students for the purposes of tuition, financial aid, and headcount identification until completion of
12 credits of graduate course work or qualified to receive the bachelor’s degree. In the semester in
which a student enrolls in the 13th credit of graduate coursework, he or she will be considered a
graduate student for purposes of tuition, headcount identification, and eligibility for graduate
assistantships, fellowships, and loans whether or not the student has completed the bachelor’s
degree.
Students’ progress through the combined program will be reviewed in the Office of the Vice
Provost for Undergraduate Education to ensure timely completion of the undergraduate degree.
Academic advisors of bachelor’s-master’s programs and students themselves should also attend to
course enrollment choices that lead to timely completion of undergraduate requirements.
Rationale for revision
The University is interested in recruiting students into bachelor’s-master’s programs. At the same time, it
must ensure that there is a clear enforceable policy in place to prevent a student from taking the entire
master’s degree while paying undergraduate tuition. The current approach has been to use accumulated
undergraduate credits of bachelor’s-master’s students to establish the student’s status. However, this
method has several problems:
1)
It reflects a somewhat outdated perspective on undergraduate students’ college career. It
does not match the increasingly broad set of circumstances through which students
acquire more credits than they need to complete a degree (e.g., non-applicable credits
through change of major; college credit earned in high school including AP credit;
transfer coursework, double major, study abroad, etc.);
2)
There has been no effort to bring academic advisors into the conversation with students
BEFORE the higher charges begin to appear on bills, creating confusion and ill will for
students; and
3)
Only students in these combined degree programs are subject to such charges for taking
more than 120 undergraduate credits while other students can accumulate an unlimited
number of undergraduate credits.
The proposed approach, modeled after others in the SUNY system, focuses on the graduate credits
accumulated. Because 12 credits of coursework can be applied to both the undergraduate degree and
graduate degrees, the 13th graduate credit is a logical point at which to begin charging graduate tuition.
(SUNY Policy prevents the University from “splitting” charges between the graduate and undergraduate
rates, and financial aid may only be applied in a given semester at the undergraduate or graduate rates.)
