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MEMO: Revised Filing Fee Regulations

Office of the Dean
Graduate Division
University of California, Berkeley

April 5, 2002

To: Deans, Directors, Chairs
From: Joseph J. Duggan, Associate Dean
Subject: Revised Filing Fee Regulations

The Filing Fee is a reduced fee for graduate students who have completed all requirements for the degree except for filing the master's thesis or doctoral dissertation or taking the final comprehensive examination for the master's degree or the Final Examination for the doctorate. The Filing Fee is not a form of registration or equivalent to registration. If students wish to use University services that are supported by registration fees, they must pay those fees.

The current amount of the Filing Fee is $178.25, which is equal to one-half the University Registration Fee.

In the past on the Berkeley campus there have been two types of filing fee: one for students who do not hold academic appointments and another for those who do hold such appointments. This second type of filing fee is contrary to University employment policy, which requires that all students holding academic appointments be registered and enrolled in eight units of course work in the terms in which they hold those appointments.

Consequently, in fall semester, 2002, those who are on Filing Fee, and thus are not registered and enrolled, will not be approved for academic student appointments.

Beginning in fall, 2002, all students holding academic student appointments at 25% or more -- Graduate Student Researcher, Graduate Student Instructor, Acting Instructor, Reader, Tutor, Nursery School Assistant, and Community Teaching Fellow - will be entitled, as a benefit of employment, to full remission of the Registration Fee, the Educational Fee, and the Health Insurance Fee, covered by the salary source by which the students are paid. The academic student employee will pay other campus-based fees unless they are qualified to have those fees covered by another funding source.

Henceforth, the Filing Fee will apply for the length of the semester for which Filing Fee status has been approved, up to the deadline for filing for a degree in that semester. These dates vary from year to year, but are approximately December 20 and May 25 of each year.

The Filing Fee may be used only once. However, students currently in graduate programs who have used the Filing Fee to file for a master's degree in spring semester, 2002, or in a prior semester, will be permitted to apply for Filing Fee for the doctoral degree.

Students may file for graduate degrees during the Summer Sessions if they are registered and enrolled. Degrees for which students file in Summer Sessions will be awarded as of the end of the following fall semester. Summer Sessions enrollment, for purposes of the regulations covered in this memo, must be for a minimum of four units. The current fee for Summer Sessions is on the order of $114 per unit for an undergraduate course and $142 per unit for a graduate level course.

As in the past, to be approved for the Filing Fee, students will have to have been continuously enrolled during all periods of study and research that have required use of University facilities or faculty consultation. Two semesters of approved withdrawal are permitted, but the student must be registered in the semester (or in a Summer Session) immediately preceding the one for which Filing Fee status is requested.

Students must apply for the Filing Fee by the end of the first week of classes of the semester in which they intend to file.

cc: Members of the Graduate Council
Head Graduate Advisers
Management Services Officers
Graduate Student Affairs Officers

Revised: May 28, 2002

The contact person regarding this memo is Associate Dean Joseph J. Duggan