Benefit Amount
Guidelines & Resources
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Your TGP benefit amount is calculated using these factors:
- Stanford’s annual tuition amount
- The cost of tuition and fees at your child's school
- Any applicable grants or scholarships your child has been awarded
- Any amount you have already paid towards the TGP benefit amount from a 529 college savings plan sponsored by a state or state agency
- The FTE percentage of your position(s)
- The amount of remaining TGP points
At each new quarter, semester, or annual application for your child, we will calculate the current benefit amount and you will have an authorization letter guaranteeing the correct amount that is payable to your child’s school.
How the above factors affect your benefit
- Stanford’s annual tuition: The maximum benefit possible is one-half (or 50%) of Stanford’s current annual tuition cost.
- The cost of your child’s school: If the total allowable costs at your child’s school are less than half of Stanford’s annual tuition, we will pay the lesser amount.
- Any tuition specific grants or scholarships are subtracted first from the costs of your child’s school, reducing the maximum TGP benefit.
- Click here to see an example of when outside grants/scholarships are tuition specific.
- If you use your 529 account to pay for your child(ren)’s tuition costs upfront to the school, we cannot reimburse you for any tuition payment you made through the TGP program for that specific term.
- Your FTE percentage: The benefit amount is prorated based on your positions’ FTE percentage.
- If your position is full-time (40 hours per week) at the beginning of the payable term, you will be eligible for 100% of the TGP benefit.
- This is referred to as the “full-time benefit”.
- If your position is part-time (20-39 hours per week), you will be eligible for a TGP amount that is prorated by the FTE percent of your benefits-eligible job.
- For example, if your semester benefit was $10,000 at 100% FTE, it would be $7,500 if you are at 75% FTE (which is 30 hours per week across all jobs).
- If your position is 19 or fewer hours per week, you are not eligible for the Tuition Grant Program.
- If your position is full-time (40 hours per week) at the beginning of the payable term, you will be eligible for 100% of the TGP benefit.
- Intersession: An intersession is generally a period of a few weeks of “inter-term time” between semesters or quarters during which students can take short, accelerated classes or complete other academic work.
- If your child enrolls in an Intersession, you may choose to have TGP pay the Intersession tuition and the student loses no eligibility points. However, an inter-term payment will lower the benefit amount remaining for full academic terms later in that same academic year.
- Remaining TGP points can be less than 3 for your child’s final year.
- If your child only has 2.25 TGP points left for their Senior year, because they used TGP for a summer session, then they will be eligible for the full benefit amount for Fall and half the benefit amount for Spring. This means 2 TGP applications will need to be submitted for that academic year.
You are responsible to advise the TGP office if your employment status or FTE % changes during the academic period in which you are receiving a TGP benefit.
Allowable costs at your child’s school
Generally, TGP pays only for tuition costs and approved fees. We consider mandatory fees as approved fees since they are charged to all students. However, there are many types of school charges that are Exclusions, not paid for out of the TGP benefit:
Benefit Exclusions
- Room and board
- Books and course materials
- Health insurance
- Transportation and parking
- Tutoring fees
- Laboratory fees
- Special fees established only for specified courses
- Auditing fee, late fees or interest fees
- Tuition insurance
- Expenses at any United States or foreign institution that are not normally included in the basic tuition and fees by Stanford University, the University of California, or the California State Universities
- Other costs or expenses that Stanford, in its sole discretion, decides are not tuition or allowable expenses within the meaning of the Tuition Grant Program