Stay on Track, Stay Debt-Free

NO EXTRA FEES IF YOU GRADUATE ON TIME

Additional Fees to Keep our Debt-Free Tuition Model

At GCAS, our mission is simple yet powerful: provide world-class, accredited degrees without saddling student-researchers with debt. Our programs are carefully designed so that—by following the standard timeline to completion—you can graduate without paying a single euro beyond your tuition. The additional fees listed below apply only in exceptional circumstances, such as extending your studies well beyond the built-in grace period or requesting supervision arrangements outside the standard budget. In other words, by staying engaged, focused, and on schedule, you can complete your degree exactly as planned—with no extra costs and the freedom to move forward in your career debt-free.

To remain true to this mission, we must recover certain extraordinary costs directly from the researchers who incur them. The primary additional costs beyond tuition at GCAS include continuation fees and extraordinary supervision fees. Continuation fees apply when a researcher exceeds the standard program completion time plus the two-month grace period: €250 per month for MA, BA, or PhD programs beyond this limit. Extraordinary supervision fees arise in specific cases: MA researchers who require more than the three months of thesis supervision budgeted by GCAS pay €150 per additional month; PhD researchers who wish to continue supervision during the three non-budgeted months of the year also pay €150 per additional month; and PhD researchers requesting more than one supervisor during Year 2 or Year 3 are responsible for the extra cost, typically €150 per month.

GCAS Additional & Supervision Fees Summary

Table displaying different academic fee types, their applicable programs, included in tuition, fee application periods, and monthly costs, with a color-coded background for each fee category.

1. Continuation Fees

GCAS provides clearly defined timelines for the completion of each degree program:

  • MA programs: 12 months

  • BA and PhD programs: 36 months

To support timely completion, a three-month grace period is granted beyond the official program timeline at no additional cost. After this grace period, a monthly continuation fee of €250 will be charged to all enrolled student-researchers who have not yet completed their degree requirements.

For example: If you are enrolled in a 12-month MA program and take 18 months to complete your degree, your two-month grace period covers months 13, 14 and 15. You would then be charged for months 16–18 (3 months × €250), resulting in an €750 continuation fee.

This policy ensures that GCAS can continue to provide academic support, access to resources, and faculty supervision beyond the standard program length.

2. Additional Supervision Fees

Because GCAS operates on a limited, debt-free tuition budget, we ask student-researchers to cover the costs of extraordinary supervision fees when they arise. Extraordinary supervision fees occur when a researcher wishes to work with a supervisor who requires additional funding beyond GCAS’s standard supervision budget. In such cases, GCAS simply passes on the extra cost directly to the researcher.

For MA researchers, GCAS covers the cost of thesis supervision once the researcher has completed (or is close to completing) their coursework and is ready to begin writing the MA thesis. GCAS budgets three months of supervision for each researcher at this stage, so there is no additional cost for thesis supervision within this time frame. We expect MA theses to be completed within 2–3 months of the writing phase. However, if a student-researcher requires more supervision beyond the initial three months, GCAS asks the researcher to cover the additional cost at a rate of €150 per month.

For PhD researchers, GCAS allocates a significant portion of tuition funds to support your primary supervisor. Supervision for the PhD is budgeted at nine months per calendar year (i.e., an “academic year.”). If you wish to continue supervision during the remaining three months of the year, you are responsible for covering the extra cost at a rate of €150 per month for each additional month of supervision.

In addition, if a PhD researcher wishes to work with more than one supervisor during Year 2 or Year 3 of their studies, the cost of the additional supervision is also passed on to the researcher, typically at a rate of €150 per month.

This policy ensures GCAS can maintain its debt-free tuition model while offering flexibility for researchers who require extended or specialized supervision arrangements.

Please Note: At GCAS, we most often refer to students as “researchers” or “student-researchers,” reflecting our shared commitment—across both faculty and students—to exploring and discovering truths about our world.