The following is a statement from program director Jim Dobbins:
“There are several important changes in the Masters tuition and scholarship amounts this year that benefit our students.
“First, Duke University has adopted a new flat-rate tuition model for MS students, which means that there is one tuition rate charged for each semester of full-time study rather than the previous model that charged per credit hour. This change benefits our students because it will allow courses to be taken above our mandatory 40 credit hour requirement at no additional charge. Students desiring to take additional courses will need the approval of their advisor in order to ensure that the additional courses contribute meaningfully to the student’s progress. This change will mean that students can augment their curriculum according to their career interests without additional charge for extra courses.
“Second, our medical physics graduate program is increasing the average scholarship amount granted to MS students beginning in 2011-12 to offset an increase in the overall tuition rate charged by the university. Beginning this academic year, Duke University is increasing its baseline tuition rate for Masters programs to be more in line with the level of tuition charged by other comparable universities. Our graduate program has decided, however, to increase the level of our average scholarship amount for MS students to offset most of that tuition increase, so that our students will see a net tuition increase only a few percent above last year’s tuition. Thus, keep in mind that the tuition level listed on the Duke Graduate School webpage is the base tuition BEFORE our graduate program’s scholarships are applied. Our Masters scholarship amounts are given on a competitive basis, so that the level of scholarship depends on the strength of a given applicant’s metrics; thus, not all students receive the same scholarship amount. However, our overall scholarships provided to Masters students this year will increase substantially over last year in order to offset most of the overall tuition increase by the university.”
