Common Fees Glossary
Please see below for a full list of description for Common Fees at the University of Iowa.
Application Fees (non-refundable)
Undergraduate Domestic Student and Non-Degree Student
The application fee is charged to individuals applying for admission to the University of Iowa. The fee is charged to cover administrative costs such as data processing, personnel, word processing, and postage. The application fee is non-refundable. Non-degree students range from high school students taking university courses, to visiting students enrolled in regular courses or in a study abroad program, to students working on teaching certification or prerequisite coursework for professional colleges, or to students just taking courses for pleasure. These applications can take nearly as much processing and staff time as applications submitted by degree-seeking students.
Undergraduate International Student
This application fee is charged to non-immigrants applying for admission to the University of Iowa. This fee is charged to cover administrative costs such as data processing, personnel, word processing, and postage. These individuals are charged a higher rate because of the additional costs associated with the evaluation of foreign academic records, the need to maintain special resource materials and immigration forms, and increased postage for overseas mailings. The application fee is non-refundable.
Graduate/Professional Domestic Student
The application fee is charged to individuals applying for admission to the University of Iowa. The fee is charged to cover administrative costs such as data processing, personnel, word processing, and postage. The application fee is non-refundable.
Graduate/Professional International Student
This application fee is charged to non-immigrants applying for admission to the University of Iowa. This fee is charged to cover administrative costs such as data processing, personnel, word processing, and postage. These individuals are charged a higher rate because of the additional costs associated with the evaluation of foreign academic records, the need to maintain special resource materials and immigration forms, and increased postage for overseas mailings. The application fee is non-refundable.
Iowa Dental Advanced Standing Program Applicant
Applicants to the Iowa Dental Advanced Standing Program (IDASP) are dentists trained outside the US and Canada who are seeking to earn a US accredited DDS degree. These foreign trained dentists must complete an initial application through a centralized service. Once applicants have been determined to be eligible for an onsite interview, they must complete a supplemental University application. The time and extensive review required to gather and interpret information from foreign applicants significantly exceeds the time required for review of domestic applications. Increased staff and faculty time will add expense to the IDASP application process.
Re-Entry Fee
The re-entry application fee is assessed to a returning student who has not been enrolled for three consecutive sessions and wishes to re-enroll in the University.
Applied Music Fees
Music fees are charged (in addition to regular tuition and fees) to students receiving private music instruction from University of Iowa faculty. The fee offsets the costs of one-on-one instruction.
Billing Fees
Deferred
This administrative charge is assessed to those students who do not pay their full tuition, room and board charges in August for fall semester and January for spring semester. This permits students to spread payment over three installments. The fee helps defray the extra data processing involved in carrying and billing the charges over a longer period of time, as well as the extra personnel required in the Treasurer's Office to handle the traffic involved with three tuition payments per semester instead of one.
Third Party Invoice Fee
This fee would support the costs associated with preparing invoices for entities that sponsor students at the University. The UI Third Party Billing Office (Office) meets with sponsored students each year to review the agreement with their sponsoring entity to determine what charges their sponsor will pay for and to review their U-bill account. The Office is then responsible for adhering to the sponsors’ regulations as sponsors may pay only certain percentages of charges, certain fees etc. Once payment is requested, the Office is responsible for receiving, depositing and reconciling each student’s account before the end of the semester to ensure the student can enroll in the next. This can require multiple contacts to the sponsoring organization to collect payment, address questions, provide additional information, and revise invoicing as needed. This fee is assessed each semester.
Late Payment Fee
When the Minimum Payment Amount on the U-Bill is not received by the end of business on the due date, your account will be considered past due and a $25 late payment fee will be added to your next U-Bill.
Continuing Education (per credit hour)
Listed are the tuition rates for students enrolled in continuing education/extension courses or programs offered by the University. The rates are on a per credit hour basis. (See also University/Program Specific fees for college-specific extension course fees/tuition or off-campus fees/tuition charges.)
Departmental Exam for Credit Fee (per exam)
This fee covers the expenses of creating or purchasing, administering, and scoring special examinations to determine whether students may receive test-out credit for a course in which they are not formally enrolled.
Employer Reimbursement Deferred Billing Fee
This fee is assessed to those students who have demonstrated a valid employer reimbursement contract and who desire the deferment of designated approved tuition and fees. The designated approved tuition and fees will be due and payable 30 days after the presentation of grades to students. In providing this option students who have a valid agreement with their employers can avoid registration holds or other unnecessary financial burdens.
Graduate College Fees
Thesis Fees – Master’s Thesis Publication Fee
All Master’s thesis candidates are assessed a publication fee for the microfilming and archiving of the thesis. This fee is in addition to the thesis fee.
Thesis Fees - PhD, Doctorate of Musical Arts (DMA)
All PhD and Doctor of Musical Arts candidates are assessed a fee to cover microfilming of the thesis, web access and distribution, archiving, and publication in Dissertation Abstracts International.
Thesis Fees – Master’s/Doctorate
This nonrefundable fee is charged to any student who submits a Master’s degree thesis to the Graduate College. This fee helps defray costs associated with providing part-time support for the thesis office, electronic thesis administration, and other administrative costs.
Late Fee for Applying after Deadline
This fee is assessed to students who submit an application for graduation after the published deadline.
ID Card Replacement Fee
All students receive their first student identification card free of charge. Cardholders who have lost or misplaced their identification card are assessed a fee to cover the cost of replacement.
Lakeside Lab (per credit hour)
Tuition rates for the students enrolled in extension/continuing education courses offered by the University at the Iowa Lakeside Laboratory campus.
Restrictions are placed on a student’s registration and charging ability when the minimum payment is not made by the due date. The fee, formerly referred to as a reinstatement fee, is assessed to lift the restrictions.
New Student Programs/Matriculation Fees
The Matriculation Fee (formerly called Orientation Fee) pays for programming expenses for orienting new first-year and new transfer students and their families to the university, and for enrolling them in their classes. Orientation programs are organized by Orientation Services with major contributions from Academic Advising (formal programs for students and parents, including advising and registration), International Students and Scholars Services (specialized transition services to new international students) and The Office of Student Financial Aid (aid advising and financial management).
International Student Orientation (additional program)
The Office of International Student and Scholars (OISS) provides an extensive orientation program for all new international students, undergraduate, graduate, and professional. This program addresses the unique legal and cross-cultural issues encountered by international students. The program takes place prior to the standard undergraduate orientation and academic advising program which is required of all new undergraduates (including international undergraduates) and is designed to supplement that program. The fee allows OISS to continue to provide the necessary transition services to help new international students, both graduate and undergraduate, to be successful at the University. The fee is charged to all new undergraduate degree-seeking students in F or J immigration status.
Refund Schedule Fees
The tuition assessment for regular full semester courses is set at the end of the second week of the semester. The number of credits for which a student is enrolled at the end of the second week determines the tuition assessment. Students adding additional credits after that date have the appropriate additional tuition assessed. This policy affects students who are enrolled in at least one course and does not affect the policies approved for students withdrawing from the University.
Refund Schedule – Withdrawal of Entire Registration
| Before the First Day of Class | 100% |
| First Week | 90% |
| Second Week | 75% |
| Third Week | 50% |
| Fourth Week | 25% |
| After Fourth Week | 0% |
| Drop course within First Two Weeks | 100% |
| Drop course After Second Week | 0% |
Refund Schedule Fees – Executive and Professional MBA Programs
Due to the large number of off-cycle courses offered through the Executive and Professional MBA programs, a separate refund schedule is needed for these programs. Courses meet the University’s contact hour requirements but are delivered in a condensed period of time, anywhere from 3 to 12 weeks, and often begin many weeks into a traditional academic semester. The standard University schedule does not currently adjust for the unique timing of these courses.
| Day before 1st day of class | 100% |
| 1st class through day prior to 2nd class | 90% |
| 2nd class through day prior to 3rd class | 75% |
| 3rd class through day prior to 4th class | 50% |
| 4th class through day prior to 5th class | 25% |
| Day of 5th class and after | 0% |
Registration Fees
Doctoral Post Comprehensive or Prelim/Master’s Final
The doctoral post-comprehensive fee is charged to post-comprehensive doctoral students who experience an unavoidable interruption in their academic progress, but must maintain continuous enrollment. The master’s final fee is charged to master’s students who experience an unavoidable interruption in their academic work, but must be registered. In both cases, students charged this fee are not receiving instruction from the institution.
Late Registration
This fee is assessed to students who do not register for classes before the 11th day of class. This fee is an administrative charge to encourage students to register for classes in a timely manner so as to provide enrollment management data to administrative areas who can make decisions on how to best utilize university resources.
Day 11 onward - $100
Reissue Check Fee / Returned Check/Debit Fee
This Reissue Check Fee is assessed to individuals who request the issuance of a duplicate check. This charge helps defray the personnel time involved in researching the check, the cost of printing a new check, as well as bank costs.
The Returned Check / Debit Fee is a surcharge against the maker of a dishonored check or against the person who authorizes a direct debit to an account with insufficient funds or an account that has been closed.
University Records and Documents Fee
This fee combines heretofore separately assessed fees for services provided by the University Registrar. Fees eliminated by this one-time fee include: diploma replacement fee, fax fee, graduation/degree application fee, drop/add fee, late registration (days 1-10) and the transcript fee. The fee is assessed at first enrollment for both degree seeking students and non-degree seeking students. Students and alumni are provided transcript services past graduation at no additional charge.