Tuition remission is the payment of tuition expense as part of compensation to students performing sponsored work on federal research awards. Tuition awards from a grant cannot include institutional, differential or other fees that are incorporated into the student's tuition bill. Although not a required budget component, tuition remission may be charged to research awards as a direct cost and is excluded from the application of indirect (F&A) costs (Office of Management Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards (2 C.F.R. §200.466) "Uniform Guidance").In total, student "compensation" is an aggregate total of salary/stipend, benefits and tuition. Students may be asked to reimburse and pre-paid tuition on a pro-rata basis.

Principal Investigators (PI) are encouraged, but not required, to include a request for tuition costs for student research assistants, when allowed by the sponsor and if funding permits. After the sponsor approves the tuition of the awarded grant, the student is assigned to the funded project as a research assistant. The amount in percentage of tuition charged against the grant shall correlate to the percentage of available work effort the student is assigned to provide on the grant. When student tuition is paid from a sponsored grant, the PI and his/ her department will be responsible for accurately managing the compensation, encumbering the project, monitoring the expenditures, and reporting and certifying the related work effort. If a student changes status or their work effort during a budget period, the PI shall notify ORSPA and other appropriate University services for updating the changes.