(January 5, 2026)

The following policy governs the hiring of Graduate Research Assistants in the College of EHHD.  Hiring graduate research assistants (GRAs) with external grant funds is encouraged to provide research experience for graduate students while accomplishing the aims of your project.

In order to fairly compensate a GRA, you must include in the grant budget sufficient funds to cover the cost of the stipend that the GRA will receive including additional pay, plus proportional benefits, and if possible, at least 6-credits worth of tuition (including fees as well will make your offer more competitive).

    1. In EHHD effective January 1, 2026, the stipends provided MS level GRAs will be a minimum $1010/pay period ($20,200 per academic year - 10 months, 20 pay periods) for 19 hours per week of work . PhD level GRAs should earn a minimum of $1,110/pay period ($22,200 per academic year for 19 hours per week of work. Both levels also earn the additional  ("Gap") payment as noted in #2.  Note that GRAs can work as little as 10 hours/week and still be considered "GRAs".  If you're hiring at that level, you would pay half the GRA rate, but ALL the Gap pay rate.  Anything in between 10 and 19 could be similarly pro-rated. If you want to hire a student under 10 hours/week (on average), it is not considered a GRAship, but can be paid as hourly labor (as can undergrads - see #8 below). Just be sure enrolled students aren't working more than 20 hours/week total among any campus jobs they may have.

      In FY27, expect the minimum to go up by $300/semester over the levels described above.

      Nineteen hours per week of work (on average) is the maximum number of hours that a GRA can be employed except during the 2 summer months remaining in a calendar year when it can rise to 40 hours/week if they're not taking classes. 

      Please note that for your GRA hires  you may wish to use the Grad Office's GRA budget tool which may be found under the Departmental and Faculty/PI Forms tab on the Grad School's Forms page.

    2.  Additional (Gap) payment. Per the collective bargaining agreement, additional payment for GAs in their first 5 AY semesters is $106.50/pay period (or $1065 per AY semester).  Additional payment for GAs in their 6th or greater AY semester is $131.50/pay period ($1,315 per AY semester).  

      A new Gap feature is that it will carry over into summer pay, at 2/5 the previous semester's Gap for 2 months' summer work (i.e. $426/summer at the 1-5 semester rate, or $526/summer at the 6+ semester rate). 

      We recommend you check your grant charges for GRA hires against your FSS-provided Catbooks reports to ensure your index is being charged appropriate amounts.

    3. The following benefits rates apply (calculated in proportion to the total of salary or wage plus additional pay as noted in #1 - #2 above).
      1. 9% benefits rate for GRAs taking less than 6 credits (such as during summer).
      2. 1% benefits rate for GRAs taking 6 credits or more.
    4. Unlike Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs), GRAs are not awarded tuition waivers on State funds. Including tuition costs into your grant budget for GRAs to take at least 6 credits is strongly encouraged, and will make the offer more competitive. In‐state tuition rates apply to all graduate students who work as Graduate Assistants (10 hours/week or more) regardless of their state of residency. Current resident graduate tuition and fees may be found at the Fee Schedule web page (check the Tuition & Fee Charts - Current link in the left-hand column on that page for the current year). As noted above, if your grant does not allow tuition payments, if possible, we encourage you to increase the pay rate to include that cost to the student.
    5. To hire a GRA, please contact the EHHD Business Operations Managers (jobsehhd@montana.edu) for a Hiring Form EACH SEMESTER (including summer), and fill it out online.  If you will be paying for the student's tuition and/or fees, please make sure to include how many credits need to be paid for.  If you are covering all of the credits that they are registered for (versus a set minimum), please talk to the student to confirm the amount of credits that need to be paid for before returning the form.
    6. If you are paying their tuition: Financial Aid takes quite some time to process the tuition payments so it is likely that your student will be sent a message from the university warning them that if they don’t pay their tuition, they will be dropped from courses. Please let your student know to email jobsehhd@montana.edu and gradschool@montana.edu and let them know that they are on a GRA appointment and that their payment has not been processed yet. Note that the student should register for all the credits they will be taking so Financial Aid will have the ability to remove those fees/charges.  The students must also "Accept" their bill statement confirming their enrollment in MyInfo so they will not be dropped from their courses.
    7. Note: You may hire graduate OR undergraduate students on an hourly basis if you don't have funds or time for a full semester-long GRA-ship with a mimum 10 hours/week.  Check with the Business Operations Managers  (jobsehhd@montana.edu) about how to hire these research assistants.  For either, be sure that the total amount of time that they are working anywhere on campus does not exceed 20 hours per week and their hourly wage is at least commensurate with the wages they are being paid by other departments for similar work.  Note that if you want to offer a competitive wage, the $20.2k AY26 rate for GRAs translates to about $26.60/hour; the $22.2k AY26 rate for GRAs translates to approximately $29.25/hour.