Stay on Track, Stay Debt-Free

Additional Fees & Supervision Policy

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.

Our Debt-Free Promise

At GCAS, our mission is simple yet powerful: provide world-class, accredited degrees without saddling student-researchers with debt. 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. By staying engaged, focused, and on schedule, you complete your degree exactly as planned, with no extra costs.

Continuation Fees

GCAS provides clearly defined timelines for the completion of each degree program. 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 is charged to all enrolled student-researchers who have not yet completed their degree requirements.

Program Timelines

After the Grace Period

A monthly continuation fee of €250 / month will be charged for all enrolled student-researchers who have not yet completed their degree requirements after their program timeline plus the three-month grace period.

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

Example
If you are enrolled in a 12-month MA program and take 18 months to complete your degree, your three-month grace period covers months 13, 14, and 15. You would then be charged for months 16–18 — that’s 3 months × €250 = €750 in continuation fees.

Additional Supervision Fees

Because GCAS operates on a limited, debt-free tuition budget, we ask student-researchers to cover the costs of extraordinary supervision when they arise. In such cases, GCAS simply passes on the extra cost directly to the researcher.

MA Thesis Supervision

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—there is no additional cost within this time frame. We expect MA theses to be completed within 2–3 months of the writing phase.

If a student-researcher requires supervision beyond the initial three months, GCAS asks the researcher to cover the additional cost at a rate of €150 / month.

PhD Supervision

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 / month for each additional month.

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 / month.

Fee Summary

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.

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