Purdue Fort Wayne expands alumni discount to include 16 graduate programs

As more than 200 graduates-to-be participated in the first Senior Sendoff on the day before commencement, many asked questions about a sign advertising the alumni discount program for graduate studies.

“Since it is new, nobody knew about it,” said Chadi Braish, executive director of continuing studies. “We started talking about it, and they were like, `Oh, so that’s a possibility,’ and it really did catch some attention. We have two new students signed up already to take advantage of it.”

The program offers alumni who received a bachelor’s degree during the previous five years the opportunity to waive tuition on up to three credit hours per semester, with a total of nine credits across their enrollment in the graduate program. All PFW graduate programs are eligible, and students are required to take at least two courses per semester and maintain continuous enrollment every fall and spring semester.

Sherif Elfayoumy, the Steel Dynamics Dean of the College of Engineering, Technology, and Computer Science, proposed the idea, which Braish said now includes 16 graduate programs. The discount was announced last summer but rolled out to all master’s degree programs during the recently completed spring semester with 12 students enrolled for fall 2025, Braish said.

“In the state of Indiana right now, less than 11% of the population has a degree beyond a bachelor’s degree,” Braish said. “If you pluck out the lawyers, doctors, and professors, that’s a small population of individuals who have specialized master’s degrees in industry, and if you look at some of the economic news right now, having more education can be a big advantage in the job market.”

Each program requires different credits to qualify for master’s degrees. Because graduate courses typically don’t have financial aid or scholarship opportunities, Braish said the discount is available to help make the post-grad study option more affordable for PFW alumni.

“It’s amazing the level of satisfaction that students have from our graduate programs,” Braish said. “We want to be the area’s premier institution for graduate work, and this is our way of promoting that.”

For additional information, prospective students can contact the Office of Graduate Studies at [email protected] or Braish at [email protected].