Enhancements are being implemented to the Employee Fee Waiver and Dependent Tuition Reimbursement application process. Effective with the fall 2019 semester, eligible employees will automatically be enrolled for the Employee Fee Waiver benefit when taking courses at Southeast. A separate online application will no longer be required.In the future, the Dependent Tuition Reimbursement application will only need to be completed one time by the employee for each eligible dependent. Employees will only need to complete an application for new dependents for their first semester taking classes; they will automatically receive the benefit in future semesters without requiring the employee to complete an application. The application for new dependents must be submitted through the portal by the first day of the first semester in which the employee is eligible for tuition reimbursement. Employees with dependents who have already been taking coursework and receiving the tuition reimbursement will need to complete the online application through the portal prior to the first day of the Fall 2019 semester, but will not need to enroll the dependent again after that.The Benefits Subcommittee, a subcommittee with representation from all employee groups that annually discusses employee benefits, recommended changes to tuition assistance benefits to the Budget Review Committee (BRC) on March 28, 2019, as part of the FY20 budget balancing process. The following recommendations were endorsed by the BRC on April 16, 2019, and subsequently recommended by the President and approved by the Board of Regents at their June 13, 2019, meeting. The following changes to tuition assistance benefits will be effective with the fall 2019 semester:

1. A six (6) month waiting period for new employees wishing to participate in the Employee Fee Waiver program.
2. Employees who leave employment within six (6) months following completion of a degree program will be required to reimburse previously paid fee waivers that were received in the semester prior to degree completion.
3. The Employee Fee Waiver program will have a benefit cap of 132 credit hours toward the completion of an undergraduate degree and 50 credit hours toward completion of one graduate degree. Current program participants are not subject to the change, as it will only apply to new program participants.
4. Course repeats for courses with previously applied fee waivers will not be permitted. Exceptions would be course repeats for required course credit toward graduation, designated topic courses or designated internships.
5. The Cooperative Graduate Program will continue to reimburse 60 percent of Southeast courses within the program of study. Other participating institution courses will be reimbursed at 30 percent. Current program participants are not subject to the change, as it will only apply to new program participants.

Employees may review the procedures in their entirety in the Business Policy and Procedures Manual 03-21 at https://semo.edu/finadm/procedures/index.html.Additional questions may be directed to Human Resources at (573) 651-2206 or humanresources@semo.edu.