Military leave

Active military duty

Under current University policy (informed by State statute), if you are serving in Reserve or National Guard units and are called to active military duty, you may be able to withdraw from classes with a full refund of tuition. If you are a financial aid recipient, you will be subject to refund policies as provided by the aid program sponsors. We will review the request for tuition reimbursement.

Procedure

You must provide us with a copy of your military orders as soon as they are available. In the rare case where you are required by the military to leave immediately, a family member or other designated party may submit a copy of the orders and complete the Petition for academic policy or tuition refund for UMD students form for you.

Exceptions

Please note this refund policy does not apply to students called to Active Duty for training, such as Annual training, AIT, or drill weekends.

Consider incompletes instead of withdrawing

In some circumstances, you may want to ask your instructors about incompletes for coursework as an alternative to canceling. When appropriate, instructors may make arrangements for you to take an incomplete for the courses in question. University Senate policy requires an incomplete be made up within one calendar year of the end of the term in which the incomplete is given. When you are called to active military duty, and reach agreement with your instructor(s) to take an incomplete, you will have up to one calendar year following your discharge from active duty to complete any incompletes.

Short-term leaves

If you will miss classes for short-term military leave or military training exercises (example: annual training for National Guard and Reserve members), you must contact your instructors as soon as possible so appropriate accommodations can be made. For further details, please see the policy on Excused Absences.

Please be proactive in alerting your instructors to possible absences, and contact us if you have any questions.

Spouses of service members called to active duty

Students who are the spouse of a service member and have a dependent child are able to withdraw from classes with a full refund of tuition if their spouse is called to active duty. The same terms and conditions apply to these students as to the service members. Students must present the service members' orders to their college and us to begin the process of reimbursement.