All semesters of enrollment in the graduate career are applied to a student’s GSSP tuition eligibility semesters. The eligibility clock automatically begins with the first semester of enrollment in graduate school, regardless of utilization of GSSP benefits.Semesters of tuition eligibility does not automatically reset upon admission to a new degree or switch to a different program. With this in mind, there may be impacts to semesters of GSSP eligibility when switching between programs, particularly for doctoral students who transfer to a master’s degree or for students who add a doctoral degree after completion of a master’s at NC State.  

Students in master’s degrees are permitted four semesters of eligibility, so moving from a doctoral degree to a master’s degree, particularly after the fourth semester, will result in the student being beyond allowed semesters for GSSP tuition support.  

Doctoral students have eight or ten semesters of tuition eligibility, depending on the credit hours required to complete the degree and previous related master’s status. Doctoral students with a previous related master’s will receive 8 semesters of eligibility, while doctoral students without a related previous master’s will receive ten semesters of eligibility. It is assumed that when doctoral students are admitted with a masters degree that the master’s degree is related to the doctoral degree and that a previous master’s allowance will be applied toward minimum doctoral hourly requirements. 

Students should always confirm GSSP eligibility and utilization in the MyPack Portal each term: https://grad.ncsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/GSSP_Student-View.pdf

If you feel that your tuition eligibility calculation is incorrect, please contact your Director of Graduate Programs (DGP).