Graduate Degree Eligibility

Your degree eligibility form is your application to graduate. Use the form to say when you expect to graduate, to specify courses you want to use toward your degree, and to verify details about your record.

  • Note: Students in Dual Masters programs must submit a separate degree eligibility form for each program. Similarly, PhD students who wish to be awarded a master's degree along the way must submit a separate degree eligibility form for the master's degree. 
    If either of these cases applies to you, expect to see a page that asks you to select the program or degree when you navigate to the Graduate Degree Eligibility page. PhD students wishing a master's degree who do not see a choice should contact their program administrator and ask them to request to add the master's program via a memo to the Graduate School .

Important!  The College of Education requests that its students use the appropriate PDF form to apply to graduate in Spring 2025.

Instructions

*** If you have already submitted a PDF degree eligibility form for May 2025 graduation, do not resubmit your information in SPIRE. ***

In SPIRE, go to Academics > Graduation > Graduate Degree Eligibility

Read the directions at the top of the page, summarized below:

  1. Verify your diploma name and address. Update if desired.
  2. Select your expected graduation term.
    1. You will always have two terms to choose from, the current term and the next term.
  3. Add thesis, dissertation, or capstone advisor and title information, if applicable.
  4. Select all courses needed for your degree. See About Selecting Courses below for important details.
  5. Select Yes to verify that information is correct and complete before clicking Submit to Grad Program Director.

You will be unable to make any changes after submitting the form unless your program or the Graduate School returns it to you. You would receive email notification if someone were to return the form.

About Selecting Courses

  • Total credits and GPA of selected courses update automatically below the table of courses. Use this summary to compare with degree requirements for your program.
  • Do not select any course that has a grade of "INC" (incomplete). You must resolve the incomplete status on a course before you can use it toward your degree.
  • PhD students should select all courses shown to display total of dissertation credits taken.
  • For Dual Master’s degrees, you will see all courses you have taken as a graduate student when you select one of your programs. All courses you select for the first program will be unavailable for selection when you open the degree eligibility form for the second program. Pay attention to your summary of total credits when selecting courses for the first degree to make sure you will have enough credits available to satisfy requirements for the second degree.
  • Except for in-progress Winter term courses, you should never select courses toward your degree that will begin after the expected graduation term.
    • If you are earning your last course credits during Winter term, you can use them toward a degree awarded for the previous Fall term. For example, if your last classes end in January 2026, select Fall 2025 as your expected graduation term.