Graduate Student Permission to Work Request
Graduate students are expected to be full-time students conducting their studies and research. On occasion, another funding opportunity may arise. When that situation occurs, permission to receive additional remuneration must be requested and approved before the work begins. Permission to Work does not need to be requested for unpaid activities such as professional development activities, volunteer roles, etc. For information about tax implications for remunerative work see the TGS Taxes page and/or the IRS.gov website. International students with F-1/J-1 status should reach out to OISS with any questions regarding their work eligibility in the U.S. and fulfilling the requirements of their visa. PhD and MFA students may work no more than 20 hours per week from all sources, including assistantships. Read full policy.
TGS approval is required ONLY if any one of these thresholds are exceeded:
- Student will work more than 10 hours/week
- Time period of service is more than one month
- Compensation is $600 or more
- Access the online request form
Permission to Work (PTW) request instructions for Students
- Log into the link above with your regular netid and password
- Before completing the form, ensure that the requested work will not put you over 20h/week total working hours from all roles combined, including a regular stipend assistantship role.
- Fill in all of the requested information and submit. In the hours field enter the hours/week you will be working in this role only, not in all your roles combined.
- Unless you are instructed otherwise by your School/program, enter the entire time frame you will be working in this role during the academic year (9/1-8/31) for roles that span multiple quarters rather than submitting a new request every quarter.
- If you are not sure who to list for some of the contact fields reach out to your home department.
- If you are unsure about some of the information related to the role such as weekly hours, timeframe, pay rate, nature of service etc., reach out to the hiring person/unit for clarification.
- Once submitted by the student, the request needs four levels of approval: the student’s advisor, the DGS/chair/program administrator, the school level administrator, and if approved by those three levels, then TGS. At any step in the approval chain an approver may deny or send back the request. If and when all four approvals have been applied an automated approval email will be sent to you.
- Once you receive the automated approval email, forward it to the hiring manager/unit if they were not one of the contact people listed on the form.
- You cannot begin the work until you receive the automated approval email
- Instructions for approvers can be found here