The board that oversees the Fulbright research-grant program decided on Tuesday that 30 graduate students at the University of California at Berkeley who were disqualified because their applications were late should be given a chance to compete for the awards.

But their applications will be reviewed by the U.S. State Department -- not the U.S. Education Department, which typically chooses Fulbright winners and originally disqualified the Berkeley students. And money for the awards will come not from the federal government but from Berkeley itself.

The J. William Fulbright Scholarship Board will complete details of the review process at a meeting scheduled for next Wednesday in Washington.

Steven Uhlfelder, the board's chairman, announced the plan after the board held a "teleconference" during which officials from Berkeley and the Education Department discussed the department's decision to reject the applications in December.

The department disqualified the students after FedEx failed to pick up their applications and the documents missed the postmark deadline last fall by one day. Since then, Berkeley officials have aggressively lobbied the department to reconsider the applications, saying it was FedEx's fault, not the students', that the applications were late. But Sally L. Stroup, the department's assistant secretary for postsecondary education, said in a statement released last week that "Berkeley was negligent" in failing to meet the deadline, and added that "fair and equitable treatment is essential in a competitive grant competition to avoid the appearance of favoritism."

In an interview on Tuesday, Mr. Uhlfelder said someone needed to come up with a "common sense" solution to the problem. "I decided that no matter who was at fault here, the only people who were going to lose were the students," said Mr. Uhlfelder, who crafted the plan the board endorsed. "At the end of the day when we need to be sending more people overseas, we should have more of the best and brightest available."

The Berkeley students, who are studying the social sciences, arts, and humanities, had applied to the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Program for fellowships ranging from $15,000 to $63,000. While the Education Department traditionally chooses winning applicants for the Fulbright-Hays program, the U.S. State Department administers a larger Fulbright awards program for scholars and teachers.

Mr. Uhlfelder said that in reviewing the Berkeley applications, staff members at the State Department would use criteria established by the Education Department. Any awards will carry the same distinction as they would had they been bestowed by the Education Department, he added. "Students will be able to say they've gotten that award."

But Susan M. Aspey, a spokeswoman for the Education Department, said in an interview on Tuesday that the Fulbright board "does not have the authority to reverse" the department's decision. Any awards made to Berkeley students, she said, "are not going to be considered Fulbright-Hays Doctoral awards." She added: "The board is taking rather extraordinary measures to provide opportunities for these students that would not be necessary had Berkeley not been negligent."

Mary Ann Mason, dean of the graduate division at Berkeley, said she was "proud of the Fulbright board for righting an obvious wrong for the students." Ms. Mason took part in the teleconference, along with Robert M. Berdahl, the university's chancellor.

Ms. Mason said Berkeley would use money from its existing pool of funds for graduate students to support any applicant who wins a Fulbright-Hays award. She estimated that the plan could cost the university "several hundred thousand" dollars.

Berkeley will have to raise money to replenish the fund, from which it makes a variety of awards to graduate students, Ms. Mason said.