Doctoral Program Tuition and Fees During Internship

[trees_and_tea]

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Hi all,

I am in a Ph.D. program in counseling psychology where students are required to register for credits during our internship year. The total expenses for in-state students during internship year is around $5,000 for tuition and fees while out of state/international students will need to pay around $12,000. Obviously these are big expenses when students are already strapped for money during internship year. Many of these students, including myself, have already completed their dissertation and required credit hours before starting internship. I have been trying to push for change such as changing the internship course to a zero-credit course or pursuing whether students can take an educational leave of absence during their internship semesters. These are routes that I have found from other APA-accredited programs who seem to be trying to minimize their students expenses during internship year. However, my program leadership has expressed concerns around liability if students are taking a leave of absence during internship year and the graduate school has not seemed receptive to changing the internship course to zero credits. I was curious what your programs did in terms of registration requirements during internship year and any advice?

Thank you.

 

[bcliff]

My institution made our internship credit an online class, which removed the additional out-of-state tuition charged to interns, who would otherwise have had to pay out-of-state tuition. I think I had to pay < $3k out of pocket for the year. I only had to enroll for a credit in the fall and in the spring (not the summer).

 

[coffee&CBT]

Our internship class was zero credits, I believe, so we did not pay anything during internship year.

 

[ClinicalABA]

We registered for credits, but our tuition and fees were waved for the entirety of our graduate program, up to and including internship year.

 

[jdawg2017]

We registered for credits, but our tuition and fees were waved for the entirety of our graduate program, up to and including internship year.

Same here. I think it takes a lot of advocating from doctoral programs to the graduate school to get this in place, as charging for credit hours when you’re not actually learning anything on the program’s time is predatory, IMO.

 

[ClinicalABA]

Same here. I think it takes a lot of advocating from doctoral programs to the graduate school to get this in place, as charging for credit hours where you’re not actually learning anything on the program’s time is predatory, IMO.

In my case, we had a very active and effective graduate student union (actually a part of UAW) that also was there to advocate and make sure all this stuff was in the CBA, just in case.

 

[trees_and_tea]

My institution made our internship credit an online class, which removed the additional out-of-state tuition charged to interns, who would otherwise have had to pay out-of-state tuition. I think I had to pay < $3k out of pocket for the year. I only had to enroll for a credit in the fall and in the spring (not the summer).

I appreciate this idea. I will look into whether changing the course to online would reduce the tuition rate and if they would be more receptive to this route.

 

[trees_and_tea]

Same here. I think it takes a lot of advocating from doctoral programs to the graduate school to get this in place, as charging for credit hours when you’re not actually learning anything on the program’s time is predatory, IMO.

It definitely has felt predatory and the graduate school has seemed very resistant toward making any changes...

 

[trees_and_tea]

In my case, we had a very active and effective graduate student union (actually a part of UAW) that also was there to advocate and make sure all this stuff was in the CBA, just in case.

Thanks for this idea! I think getting the graduate student union involved may be particularly helpful, since the graduate school seems resistant.

 

[AcronymAllergy]

We had to register for the internship "course," but I think it was for 1 credit. I believe we paid in-state fees (as we always did), but our tuition waiver remained intact.

 

[trees_and_tea]

We had to register for the internship "course," but I think it was for 1 credit. I believe we paid in-state fees (as we always did), but our tuition waiver remained intact.

Unfortunately, our graduate school requires a minimum of three credit hours of registration for every semester, which has been one of the major problems. Also, both our tuition waiver and out-of-state tuition waiver are both contingent on assistantships which we are not allowed to pursue during internship year...

 

[bcliff]

We registered for credits, but our tuition and fees were waved for the entirety of our graduate program, up to and including internship year.

Students in my program received full funding for their first four years;. Students could only apply to internship after a minimum of four years (most applied after 5 or 6), so these two credits were often the only tuition paid for by students in my program.

To the OP's point, like I mentioned, many students in my program did not apply to internship until year five or six. We were not required to enroll in credits during that time; students could opt to go on some kind of "leave" and then be reinstated at time of internship, if necessary / useful. IIRC, this unpaused students' student loan timer, though, so there were some caveats. It's been a long time, so the details are all hazy.

 

[WisNeuro]

We had to register for the internship "course," but I think it was for 1 credit. I believe we paid in-state fees (as we always did), but our tuition waiver remained intact.

This was how our program worked, it was waived, all we had to do was pay the semester admin fees, which were like $300.

 

[psych.meout]

This was how our program worked, it was waived, all we had to do was pay the semester admin fees, which were like $300.

Same.

 

[MCParent]

Since international was brought up; at least when I did it, internship is CPT and CPT requires credit hours for the visa. So a 0 credit internship year would not work for international people, unless that changed since 2013.

Naming it “internship” also caused problems at my international center, because nearly everyone thought it was an elective work placement (like an engineering internship etc). Which was a pain, and required explaining things to people whose job it was to handle that.

In my experience universities have been really stringent on squeezing blood from stones for relatively (to the uni) tiny student fees but good to see others had luck.

 

[oliversacks4thewin]

Since international was brought up; at least when I did it, internship is CPT and CPT requires credit hours for the visa. So a 0 credit internship year would not work for international people, unless that changed since 2013.

Naming it “internship” also caused problems at my international center, because nearly everyone thought it was an elective work placement (like an engineering internship etc). Which was a pain, and required explaining things to people whose job it was to handle that.

In my experience universities have been really stringent on squeezing blood from stones for relatively (to the uni) tiny student fees but good to see others had luck.

This was interesting to learn, as I had been unaware of this despite attending class with international students during my education. Do you think changing the wording to "residency" as I know some training programs have opted to do, would reduce this barrier/issue?

 

[rural_psych]

Hi all,

I am in a Ph.D. program in counseling psychology where students are required to register for credits during our internship year. The total expenses for in-state students during internship year is around $5,000 for tuition and fees while out of state/international students will need to pay around $12,000. Obviously these are big expenses when students are already strapped for money during internship year. Many of these students, including myself, have already completed their dissertation and required credit hours before starting internship. I have been trying to push for change such as changing the internship course to a zero-credit course or pursuing whether students can take an educational leave of absence during their internship semesters. These are routes that I have found from other APA-accredited programs who seem to be trying to minimize their students expenses during internship year. However, my program leadership has expressed concerns around liability if students are taking a leave of absence during internship year and the graduate school has not seemed receptive to changing the internship course to zero credits. I was curious what your programs did in terms of registration requirements during internship year and any advice?

Thank you.

This is an important area of growth, particularly for counseling programs. I came from a counseling program that did make us enroll in "internship credits" while on internship -- I interned 2 years ago. They stated they did this, in part, so that students could continue securing financial aid to support themselves on internship. I am curious why you don't receive in state tuition (my program waived that at least) even though I was an out-of-state student so while it was frustrating, it wasn't as much money. I think I took out 8000k total that year to pay for the course and have some cushion while on internship. Proud of you for pushing for change! It is very needed.

 

[WisNeuro]

This is an important area of growth, particularly for counseling programs. I came from a counseling program that did make us enroll in "internship credits" while on internship -- I interned 2 years ago. They stated they did this, in part, so that students could continue securing financial aid to support themselves on internship. I am curious why you don't receive in state tuition (my program waived that at least) even though I was an out-of-state student so while it was frustrating, it wasn't as much money. I think I took out 8000k total that year to pay for the course and have some cushion while on internship. Proud of you for pushing for change! It is very needed.

8 million is a lot to take out in loans

 

[rural_psych]

8 million is a lot to take out in loans

Whoops -- my brain is clearly acting like it is a Monday. 8,000 flat is what I meant

 

[MCParent]

This was interesting to learn, as I had been unaware of this despite attending class with international students during my education. Do you think changing the wording to "residency" as I know some training programs have opted to do, would reduce this barrier/issue?

I don’t think that alone would fix much, and might cause other problems in understanding since medical residency is post-degree. So the international center might say “oh, well, here’s your degree and the residency is now OPT.”