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Home >  Education Assistance Benefits

 

This new process makes the tuition remission system easier to use! It requires fewer steps, conveys more trust and authority to the faculty and staff as individuals, as well as to their managers and supervisors. It will save time and energy throughout the organization that can be applied to other activities. It is a step forward, but it will require a few adjustments to traditional practice.

Changing the process: Incorporating the old with the new - what will stay the same?

 

• Employees will continue to obtain tuition remission forms from the Benefits website.
• Employees will continue to be responsible for tracking their family spending on credit courses and limiting it to $5,250 for the calendar year, and within that amount, limit their dependents' spending on credit courses to $2,625.
• Consistent with current practices, employees and family members will be able to spend the $5,250 on credit courses in any academic period across the calendar year as long as they maintain part-time status and stay within the spending limits established by the schools.
• The value of graduate level courses will continue to be tax-free to the employee.
• The benefit will continue to be available only to full-time employees, retirees and their spouses, same sex domestic partners and dependent children.
• Employees will continue to pay for spending which exceeds established limits (i.e., $2,625 for dependents).

Changing the process: what will be different?

 

• Different benefit application forms will be available for the employee (to include the retiree), spouse and dependent child.
• Employees will be required to complete all drop-down boxes online before printing the application.
• Applications that have not been completed online (with the appropriate drop-down boxes selected) will not be accepted because of the requirement to complete drop-down fields online.
• Departments will be responsible for tuition costs for employees they mistakenly/incorrectly certify as full-time and having met the requisite of 90 day full-time employment requirement.
• The supervisor will be responsible for ensuring that the employee has responded to all drop-down boxes online.
• The Registrars' Offices will not accept any form if the drop-down selections have not been made.
• The supervisor will be responsible for ensuring that the application has all necessary information to include Social Security Numbers, budget numbers if non-credit courses are being taken, and the employees' signature.
• The Registrars' Offices will not accept any form if the appropriate information has not been provided on the form.
• The supervisor will be responsible for confirming that the employee has read all policies pertaining to employee eligibility for tuition remission.
• The supervisor will be responsible for rejecting applications not properly completed by eligible employees.
• The supervisor will be responsible for rejecting applications completed by part-time, limited, casual employees or employees with less than 90 days in a full-time position and not eligible to have the 90 day requirement waived.
• The divisional HR offices and Benefits Service Centers will verify retirement status only.

Supervisors should be aware that:

 

• Supervisors need to know that they are responsible for validating or confirming an employee's eligibility for the Tuition Remission program.
• Supervisors are responsible for knowing their employees' exact hire dates and status (full-time, part-time, etc).
• Supervisors are responsible for knowing tuition remission rules, which, among other things, limit eligibility to full-time employees and allow employees on LOA (for no more than 90 days) to retain their eligibility for the program.
• Supervisors who falsely certify an employee as eligible to participate in the program will be responsible for having their departments incur the cost of the employee's tuition and will be asked to provide a budget number to which the employee's tuition can be charged.
• Employees who were falsely certified by their supervisors as eligible for the benefit will have their accounts turned over to a collection agency if the supervisor does not provide a budget number, and the employee opts not to pay the outstanding tuition costs.

Registrars' and Divisional Business Offices are requested to:

 

 

 

• The current process used by the Divisional Business Office to receive payment will go unchanged. However, the tuition remission benefit application, which replaces the tuition remission voucher, will not reflect the remission budget to be charged. Questions about the tuition remission budget to be charged for a given course should be directed to the Education Assistance Benefits Office.
• The Registrar's Office receiving the form should check to make sure that the information provided is complete and in order, and then pass the form to the appropriate Business Office.
• The Business Office should process the forms/amounts into ISIS, record the dollar amounts on the form, and forward the completed forms in a batch with a number assigned by their office to the Education Assistance Benefits Office.
• Next, the Business Office will use the summary totals (by batch) to bill against tuition remission accounts.
• These batches should be sent to the central Benefits office where staff will data enter the employee's demographic, course and percentage eligibility and tuition cost into the EAP database.
• EAP staff will also audit the batch numbers against the tuition remission accounts. All charges not confirmed will be investigated with the Business Offices and reversed if the spending cannot be validated.