MSU expands tuition discount for employees’ kids, spouses

The Michigan State University Board of Trustees voted unanimously Friday to expand the number of MSU employees whose dependents and spouses are eligible to receive a 50% tuition discount when pursuing an undergraduate degree at MSU.

Up to this point, the benefit policy required fixed term faculty and academic staff, as well as support staff, to complete five full-time years of work before their dependents or spouses could get a 50% off discount for undergraduate tuition at MSU.

Tenure system faculty members, on the other hand, were eligible for the benefit from the outset upon being hired. 

Now, with the passage of the new resolution — rather than only qualifying for the benefit after working full-time at MSU for five years — employees will qualify for that benefit immediately upon being hired. And, whereas MSU used to cap its contributions to undergraduate tuition once a student had completed 120 credits, that cap has now been increased to 134 credits.

Those changes mean eligibility for the benefit will be extended to an estimated 2,364 employees, and lead to approximately 167 more MSU students getting the tuition discount, according to the resolution.

The extension of the benefit will cost the university an approximated $900,406 per year, the resolution said. Costs will be covered by the university’s overall budget for employee benefits, “which may draw from sources like tuition revenue, state appropriations, and other general funds,” the resolution said. 

“By supporting the educational aspirations of employees’ families, the University strengthens the connection between its workforce and MSU’s mission,” the resolution said. “This benefit is an investment in the future, fostering a culture of learning and advancement within the University community and beyond.”

“In offering this program, the University reaffirms its belief that education is a public good and its commitment to serving not just its students and employees but also the families who are integral to their success.”

Angela Wilson, an at-large faculty senator and John A. Hannah Distinguished Professor of chemistry, lauded the policy update, saying it had been “long overdue.”

“We are delighted for this change,” Wilson wrote in an email to The State News.

At-large faculty senator and Associate Professor of history John Aerni-Flessner said the credit cap change makes the program “more equitable by ensuring that it covers students in all programs/degrees/majors,” in a message to The State News. He also lauded the removal of the “eligibility time gap in the current policy that gave tenure-system faculty immediate access but made everyone else wait five years after the start of their employment at MSU.”

Jack Lipton, an at-large faculty senator and chair and professor of translational neuroscience, said that while the changes in the policy are positive, additional ones are still needed.

He pointed to the fact that “unmarried domestic partners” who are dependents of MSU employees are still not eligible for the tuition discount.

“We are hopeful this can be addressed in the coming year,” Lipton wrote in an emailed statement to The State News.

The policy providing tuition discounts to dependents and spouses of MSU employees was first enacted by the board in 1982. It was modified to extend eligibility three times before the significant extension passed today: in 1983, 1984 and most recently in 2002.