This past semester, our Dept. as well as others have been scrambling to make sure graduate students with assistantships are covered for tuition. In the past, if the Dept paid an assistantship (basically a stipend to go to school and do research for your advisor or teach), UND covered the tuition. Since UND is a smaller institution, this works out ok because the scientists writing proposals for grants can include less $$ for students which makes the research look like more bang for the buck = higher probability of receiving the grant = more publicity and $$$ for the university since they take a cut off of grants.
From what I understand, this past summer/spring, the University dropped the news that they would no longer cover tuition waivers. While it is not uncommon for grant $$$ to also pay for tuition, the big issue here is the fact that the university gave little lead time to the departments with graduate studies. When grants are often written for multiple years, and cover MS students that will be around for 2-3, and doctorates for 3-5, this is a pretty big deal. Departments are left with several years of surrounded by question marks... where will the tuition money come from?
The University /graduate college will only cover tuition for TAs now. The problem with TAs, is in most cases, it effectively slows your graduation time because there is less time for research. Not a problem, except the graduate college is also complaining about students taking too long to graduate. To get around the new policy and assure tuition waivers for their students, departments are forced to justify and fill x amount of TA slots... slowing down graduation times for some grad students.
The kicker is an article that came out in the Herald the other day about the university in a budget crunch due to a shortage in students. While this is understandable, I just received an email over Umail about how UND is now starting a new program to give 50% tuition waivers to spouses of every UND employee. Hmm... I wonder why they cut tuition waivers...