Budgeting Graduate Students on Mentor’s Sponsored Research Grant

Determine NIH Maximum (if NIH Proposal)

Per NIH NOT-OD-02-017, Graduate Student Researcher (GSR) support (salary + benefits + tuition/fees) must not exceed the current NRSA postdoc level 0.

While the SF424 instructions say to request actual compensation amounts for graduate students, OSR policy is to apply the Postdoc level 0 in all NIH proposals.

Establish GSR Institutional Base Salary and Escalations

  1. Determine the graduate program in which the GSR is enrolled and whether the program is Basic Science or Social and Populations Sciences. 
  2. Establish the institutional GSR base salary and escalations based on the GSR program:

Basic Sciences

  • Use their agreed upon salary/stipend amount.
  • For 2022-23 starting September 1 the stipend level is $44,000 (as of 2/2/2022). 
  • For budget purposes because the GSR max effort is limited to 50%, the institutional base salary for 2022-23 is $88,000. On the budget, OSR staff will put the institutional base salary on the budget, with effort level at 50%.

Social and Populations Sciences

  • Contact the program administrator to determine if they have a salary/stipend amount for their students. 
  • If they do not, the PI and/or department can set their salary and effort levels. 
    1. UCOP Graduate Student salary scale, table 22 
    2. OSR recommends using Step X

 

Determine GSR Effort

To retain their status as a student, Graduate Students can have a maximum GSR academic payroll appointment of 50% while school is in session. When school is out of session (June-August), they may have an appointment up to 100%.

Calculate Tuition/Fees

Notes
  • For efforts between 25%-50%, tuition/fees must be covered by the funding source that provides the salary (unless prohibited by the sponsor). If it is not allowed by the sponsor, it must be covered by the mentor.
  • If GSR effort is below 25%, tuition/fees remission is not covered by the research grant.  Please note, if the GSR is on multiple research grants and their combined effort is between 25%-50% tuition and fees must be covered by the PI and or department.  In those circumstances tuition/fees will be apportioned to each of the research grants. 
Instructions
  1. Verify the type (California Resident or Not) and amount of tuition or fees.
  2. Use the Graduate Division proposed stipend and fees chart to escalate the tuition and fees each year. 
    • This chart is for California residents. 
    • Use the same percentage to increase non-resident tuition.

If the sponsor does not fully cover all of the expenses (salary + benefits (8/7/15: currently 1%) + tuition/fees) the PI or Department in the basic sciences programs must supplment using discretionary funds. This is not considered cost sharing

UCSF/UCOP Resources
Federal Sponsor Resources