Finances
Cost of attendance
How much it costs to attend the university, including tuition, fees, and room and board.
Tuition
An amount of money charged by a school per term, per course, or per credit, in exchange for instruction and training. Tuition generally does not include the cost of textbooks, room and board, and other fees.
Associate’s degree
A two-year degree earned at community colleges
Tenured professor
In higher education, tenure is a professor's permanent job contract.
Orientation
A college or university's official process of welcoming new, accepted students to campus and providing them with information and policies before classes begin.
Fees
An amount of money charged by colleges and universities, in addition to their tuition, to cover costs of services such as libraries and computer technology.
Room and board
Room and Board refers to the amount that students who live on campus must pay for housing (room) and meals (board).
Bachelor’s degree
A four-year degree
Registrar
The college or university official who is responsible for registering students and keeping their academic records, such as transcripts.
Course numbering
Courses in the 100 series are generally for first year students, course in the 200 series are for second year students, etc. English 101, for example, is a freshman course. Courses with numbers below 100 are developmental courses; developmental course credits generally cannot be used to fulfill graduation requirements.
Financial aid package
All types of money offered to a student to help pay tuition, fees, and other educational expenses. This can include loans, grants, scholarships, assistantships, fellowships, and work-study jobs.
Need-based financial aid
Financial aid that is awarded to students due to their financial inability to pay the full cost of attending a specific college or university, rather than specifically because of their grades or other merit.
BA and BS
Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of Science
Dean
The head of a division of a college or university.
Audit
When you take a college class just for the experience, but choose to not earn credit towards a degree.
Grant
A type of financial aid that consists of an amount of free money given to a student, often by the federal or a state government, a company, a school, or a charity. A grant does not have to be repaid.
Merit-based financial aid
A type of financial aid awarded by a college or university to students who have demonstrated special academic ability or talents, regardless of their financial need.
Major
The academic subject area that a student chooses to focus on during his or her undergraduate studies.
Bursar
The Office of the Bursar is responsible for billing of student tuition accounts.
CLEP (College Level Examination Program)
A test given that measures a student's level of comprehension of introductory college-level material and consecutively earns college credit. If you pass the test, you don’t have to take the class. If you fail the test, you have to take the class. This is a challenging test!!
Pell Grant
Money the government provides for students who need it to pay for college. Grants, unlike loans, do not have to be repaid. Eligible students receive a specified amount each year under this program.
PLUS Loan
A student loan offered to parents of students enrolled at least half time, or graduate and professional students, at participating and eligible post-secondary institutions. The original, now obsolete, meaning of the acronym was “Parent Loan for Undergraduate Students.”
Master's Degree
A graduate degree awarded by a college or university upon successful completion of an advanced program of study, typically requiring one or two years of full-time study beyond the bachelor's degree.
Provost
The senior academic officer of a college or university who typically oversees all academic policies and curriculum-related matters.
Thesis
A formal piece of writing on a specific subject, which may be required to earn a bachelor's or master's degree.