The Supplemental Tuition Assistance Program (STAP) was initially established in Education Law in 1981 to provide one additional year of NYS tuition support for undergraduate students who were educationally disadvantaged and unable to meet an institution’s requirements for admission as a regular student. STAP enabled a student to receive a year of tuition assistance, equal to a TAP award, for full-time or part-time enrollment only in remedial study.
However, subsequent amendment to the Education Law changed the STAP program so that tuition assistance is now available only in the summer immediately preceding the first academic year of study and/or in the subsequent summer following the first year of study.
Section 145-2.1(a)(3) of the Regulations of the Commissioner of Education defines study for the Supplemental Tuition Assistance Program as follows:
- For the supplemental tuition assistance program (STAP), an approved program of noncredit-bearing remediation shall mean the student’s entire noncredit course load taken in the summer immediately preceding and/or immediately following the initial year of matriculated study, subject to the following conditions:
- such course load shall have been approved as educationally sound by an institutional official familiar with the student’s academic deficiencies; and
- such course load shall consist of noncredit remedial work designed to remedy academic deficiencies which, if not addressed, might prevent the student from successfully completing a degree or certificate program at the institution.
Statute precludes students enrolled in the Higher Education Opportunity Program (HEOP), the Education Opportunity Program (EOP), the Search for Education, Elevation, and Knowledge Program (SEEK), or the College Discovery Program (CD) from receiving STAP awards.
STAP awards do not count against a student’s TAP eligibility.
