Graduate Stipend Task Force: Final Report

May 4, 2023

Executive Summary

In January 2023, Provost Ian Baucom commissioned a task force on graduate stipend payments, to investigate the circumstances surrounding delayed payments experienced by graduate students in December 2022.  Of the University’s roughly 2,000 funded PhD students, 180 stipend payments intended for the month of January 2023 were processed after established deadlines.  Some of these payments were received by students after January 1.  The Task Force worked throughout the spring semester to examine the processes and systems which are used to process graduate student payments and financial aid that led to this incident. 
 
The Task Force considered a number of options to improve the processes for administering graduate aid.  In summary, the Task Force recommends the following, categorized as: immediate term; short term (over the next three months); medium term (over the next six months); and long term (six to twelve months or longer):

Immediate Term Recommendation
 

1. Ensure that each school establishes the appropriate deadlines so that graduate aid entries for stipends are entered and approved for processing no later than May 22, 2023.  This will ensure that graduate students receive their stipends no later than June 1, 2023.

 
Short Term Recommendations
 

1. Ensure that established deadlines are clearly published and communicated to school/departmental graduate aid administrators, as well as on a central website to be maintained by the Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs, so that payments may be processed well in advance of the established deadlines.  
2. Develop a comprehensive FAQ and Information Website, to be hosted on the Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs website, that clearly communicates information to Graduate Students regarding payment calendars, expenditure reimbursements, I-9 compliance, etc. This initiative will require collaboration from the members of the Task Force and other University partners.
3. Schools and departments should develop a process whereby the aging of expenditure reimbursements is monitored to ensure that graduate student reimbursements are processed in a timely manner.   Schools also should consider whether or not it is feasible to move to a meal per diem, rather than an itemizing of meal expenditures, which require receipts.

Medium Term Recommendations
 

1. Schools should consider developing an automated process (EIB) to upload wage payments for graduate students into Workday, cutting down on duplicate data entry and minimizing errors. 
2. Convene a user/stakeholder community, hosted by the Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs, for those who process graduate aid, which will meet regularly to provide for listening sessions, monthly user meetings, and knowledge exchange, in order to identify pain points and process improvements.   
3. Update and advertise user training on the Workday, Student Information System (SIS), and Student Aid Funding Modules (SAFM).   
4. Consider modifying the Student Financial Services’ (SFS) emergency loan policy to allow it to better meet the needs of students who are transitioning from stipends to wages. 

 
Long Term Recommendations
 

1. Consider amending the stipend payment dates from a payment date of the 1st of the month (as is the current process) to the 15th of the month in order to shorten the long payment gap experienced by students switching from stipend to wage. 
2. Examine staffing levels, recruitment practices, and retention patterns in departments/schools to ensure that there is adequate staffing, cross-training, and temporary coverage to accomplish the tasks associated with the administration of graduate financial aid. 
3. Consider developing and enabling one central system for entering, reporting, monitoring, and accounting for graduate financial aid.  Study is needed to determine the business case, cost-benefit analysis, and required resources.
4. Develop guidance and document the proper workflow around Cross-Unit SAFM entries, which will address the current complications experienced when graduate students are funded across schools.  
5. In consultation with department/school administrators, central SFS staff, central ITS staff, and central Reporting staff, develop automated audit reports and other end-user reporting that will simplify and enable reconciliation between Workday, SIS, and SAFM.

Background

In late December 2022, a number of graduate students reported through departmental administrators and social media that they did not receive monthly stipend payments when expected.   In response to these reports, University employees returned to work over the winter break to examine the problem and process any outstanding payments.
 
In January, Provost Ian Baucom commissioned a task force on graduate stipend payments to investigate the circumstances surrounding the delayed payments, with the charge to identify the issues that caused the delayed payments experienced in December/January and to make recommendations on how to best address those issues/errors prior to the next disbursement cycle (summer 2023).  The Task Force was officially convened by the Provost on February 9, 2023 (see Appendix A).
 
This report details the work of the Task Force and provides recommendations for improvements in processes and systems that will prevent future delays in the disbursement of graduate student aid.

Impact of Delayed Payments

Upon examination, it was determined that most of the outstanding payments were concentrated among the University’s PhD students in the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences (GSAS), although some students in other schools also were impacted. 
 
Of the University’s roughly 2,000 funded PhD students, 180 stipend payments intended for the month of January 2023 had not been completed for processing.  These payments were entered after the established processing deadline of December 16, with some of them entered after December 21, when the University was closed for winter break.  Staff returned from winter break to process these payments between December 28 and December 30.  Although all outstanding stipend payments were processed prior to January 1, some payments were not received by students until after January 2 because of the holidays – including a general bank holiday on Monday, January 2 – and normal variations in specific bank schedules for processing direct deposits. The University reached out to students who may have received their January stipend payment after the 1st of the month, offering assistance to address the potential financial consequences which may have resulted from the delay (e.g., late rent/utility payments).

Reasons for Delayed Payments

Examination by the Task Force determined that, in most cases, delayed disbursement of the January 2023 stipend payment was tied to errors or delays in the processing of spring semester (2023) student aid packages prior to submission to Student Financial Services for processing.  The two principal causes of these errors were:
 

• Miscommunications on required deadlines for the entry of spring aid packages, including the consequences of missing the established processing deadlines; and
• Administrative delays, such as data entered before the deadlines but not approved by higher-level administrators prior to the processing deadline because of data entry errors or inconsistencies.

 
These challenges were compounded by temporary vacancies in key roles in the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, which normally play a proactive role in recognizing and resolving errors in departmental aid entries before the deadlines pass.  GSAS began work to fill these vacancies in July 2022, and these key roles have now been filled.   The Task Force found no evidence that staffing levels in Student Financial Services contributed to the delays in receipt of stipend payments.

Background on PhD Student Aid

Although the University provides financial aid in various forms to graduate students in a wide variety of degree programs, PhD students in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences were the primary population impacted by the January stipend delays; thus, the background offered here focuses primarily on the manner in which these students are supported.
 
Although specific circumstances may vary by school and program, most PhD students at UVA (including all PhD students enrolled in the GSAS) are provided with five years of financial support in order to complete the degree requirements of the PhD.  The forms of this support include tuition, fees, wages, stipends, and health insurance subsidy.

Tuition

All GSAS PhD students receive tuition remission (the in-state portion of tuition) and adjustments (out-of-state portion of tuition) as applicable for 10 semesters while they make progress toward completion of the PhD. Current tuition for PhD students in GSAS is as follows:

Fees

All GSAS students within the five years of standard funding support are remitted the regular session comprehensive fees. For 2022-2023 the comprehensive fees are $3,300 for Virginia residents and $3,982 for out-of-state students.  Comprehensive fees include access to a variety of services including care through UVA Student Health and Wellness; access to software licensed by the University; and access to University Transit Services, among others.

Wages Associated with Graduate Assistantships

Graduate Research Assistantships (GRAs) and Graduate Teaching Assistantships (GTAs) are a form of student aid in which training and experiential learning in teaching and research (necessary for PhDs in Arts & Sciences disciplines) overlaps with service provided to the University. 
 
GRAs often work and are compensated for 20 hours per week in the labs of the faculty members in which they are being trained in the methods of their chosen discipline.  This commitment coincides with additional time spent in training activities that are reflected in research credit hours that must be earned as part of the degree program.
 
GTAs in the GSAS often work an average of 10 or 20 hours per week over the course of a 20-week term in teaching and support of an undergraduate course that is taught and supervised by a faculty member in their discipline.  In the GSAS, non-compensatory stipends (see details on stipends below) often supplement the wages that GTAs earn in order to achieve the Fiscal Year (FY) 23 base-level of funding of $26,000-32,000 per year inclusive of all wage and stipend support (not including tuition, fees, and health insurance subsidy).  In FY24, all GSAS students will receive a minimum of $30,000 per year in wages and stipends.
 
In the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences in FY23, GRAs and GTAs earn $25 per hour[1] in wages while engaged in their research and teaching-related duties.  In FY24, this figure will be $30 per hour.
 
Consistent with federal tax laws and labor policies, the University views graduate students serving in assistantships first and foremost as students; indeed, their role in assistantships is contingent on their being enrolled as a full-time graduate student. Their classification as students confers upon them certain benefits.  For example, as they provide services within the context of a degree program, graduate assistant wages are exempt from FICA tax withholding.  Moreover, unlike other employees whose educational benefits (including tuition assistance) may be treated as taxable income, U.S. Internal Revenue Code exempts graduate assistants who teach or conduct research from taxation on tuition remission/adjustment.

Finally, as with other forms of payroll, wages for services associated with work as a GRA or GTA are payable following the period of work, and such wages are paid according to the University’s payroll calendar.

Stipends

Stipends are provided as support within a graduate fellowship and are defined in University policy (PROV-001: Graduate Assistantships) as “an amount given directly to a student to support the pursuit of study or training. Students receiving a stipend are under no obligation to perform services as a condition of receiving the funds. Such support typically is provided over a period of time, e.g., ten monthly deposits of $500 each.”
 
Stipends are provided to graduate students in a variety of circumstances, either as the primary form of financial support, or to supplement other forms of support, such as wages earned in the context of a Graduate Research/Teaching Assistantship.  While the amounts may vary across departments, in FY23 in GSAS, GTAs in 10 hour per week positions typically receive a minimum of $5,000 in non-compensatory stipend support over the course of each 20-week semester, as well as the summer term (during which GTA duties are generally not required); this stipend is in addition to any wages earned. GSAS students are also typically allotted at least one semester during which all direct financial support is conferred in the form of non-compensatory stipend payments, offering students crucial time with financial support (e.g., $10,000 over 20 weeks) and no work obligations, to help ensure timely completion of the degree. 
 
Unlike wages, which are paid only after the provision of services, stipends can be disbursed prior to the period of intended support.  Thus, January stipends should normally be disbursed prior to the end of December, and payable no later than the 1st day of the month.

Health Insurance Subsidy

The University offers qualified GRAs and GTAs, as well as many other students on fellowship support (including GSAS PhD students within the five years of financial support), a 100% subsidy to cover the cost of single coverage on the Aetna Student Health Insurance Plan.  The value of the 2022-2023 subsidy is $3,309. 

Graduate Student Funding Processes and Procedures

Although the challenges encountered in December and January centered on stipend payments, stipends comprise just one facet of a more complex system of graduate student aid, as described above.  Thus, in order to address and improve the system as a whole, the Task Force made the decision to include systems and processes associated with wage payments and expense reimbursements within the scope of its work. 
 
The administration of graduate aid and expense reimbursement relies upon several key systems, the definitions of which are important for understanding the processes through which graduate aid is currently entered and the recommendations for future improvements.  Key systems include:
 

• School-specific systems, designed to track, record, and administer graduate aid: These systems vary by the needs of the individual school and are crucial for managing the complex and evolving mix of Graduate Teaching Assistantships, Graduate Research Assistantships, and internal and external fellowships through which individual students are funded, and which often vary by student from term to term. 
• Student Information System (SIS), which includes several relevant modules:
  • The Student Aid Financial Module (SAFM), which serves as the point of data entry for graduate stipends.
  • Financial Aid and Student Finance modules, with which the SAFM information integrates to record and generate the transactions to process tuition and fee, health insurance, and stipend funding.
• Workday HR and Financial System, which:
  • Establishes and records the roles of students earning wages (e.g., GTA or GRA, hours of commitment, supervisor, etc.) and processes those wages through the normal payroll process/calendar;  
  • Processes stipends entered through SIS to Workday’s Accounts Payable module; and
  • Processes expenditure reimbursements for expenses incurred in support of University-authorized activities, such as conference travel.

 
The Task Force reviewed the systems and processes for entering graduate student aid (comprised of both wages and stipends) for three schools with the largest enrollment of PhD students: Arts & Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (Biomedical Sciences).  The Task Force also invited school associate deans, assistant deans, and financial personnel from SEAS and SOM, as well as additional members of the University’s central Finance and Student Financial Services teams to attend several meetings and to contribute details on their own processes and challenges. 

The current graduate student funding processes and procedures vary across schools and are not consistently documented and communicated. (See Appendix B for a diagram of the GSAS process.) There are multiple forms of support provided to graduate students, each with their own set of guidelines and processes.  As noted above, the primary components of graduate aid are:
 
(1)  Fellowships, typically paid monthly in the form of stipends;
(2)  Wages, paid to Graduate Teaching Assistants and Graduate Research Assistants, for up to a maximum of 20 hours per week;
(3)  Funding to cover the costs associated with tuition, health insurance, and comprehensive fees; and
(4)  Allocations for research support and expense reimbursements for out-of-pocket expenses, including those associated with conferences and travel. 
 
The processes for providing graduate aid are complicated by the fact that award packages may be allocated as fellowship stipends, teaching/research wages, or some combination of the two.  As noted in the section, above, stipends and wages are processed and paid through different systems, and the timing of those allocations differs by payment type:  Stipends are paid monthly through the Workday Accounts Payable system after being initiated in SIS, and wages are paid biweekly through the Workday Payroll System.

Expense Reimbursement

While not financial aid, graduate students may be reimbursed for personal expenses that are incurred in support of their education, such as those associated with research/conference travel.  The expense reimbursement process can be a complicated one, in that graduate students must have some knowledge of University policies for what qualifies for reimbursement, maintain receipts to document meals and other expenses, have some understanding of the funding source (i.e., grant funds or other types of funds), and have knowledge of Workday-specific information, such as the proper accounts to charge[1].  Some departments ask graduate students to initiate their own expense reports in Workday, while other departments (such as some in GSAS) have employees who serve as “delegates” who can enter the information into Workday on behalf of the student. 
 
Errors at the time of data entry into the system (e.g., no meal receipts, incorrect amounts), lack of documentation of approvals for specialized services (e.g., travel insurance), and incorrect or missing Work Tags (i.e., account charging information) can lead to delays in the student receiving payment.  If the reimbursement request involves conference travel, these amounts can be significant (i.e., greater than $1,000).   Note that the errors, described above, which lead to a delay in reimbursement are more likely to occur when the student initiates the action in Workday; delays in reimbursement are much less likely to occur when the action is initiated by a departmental delegate, who is a University employee already familiar with the University’s requirements for reimbursement.

Problems Identified

One of the overarching goals of the Task Force is to make recommendations that can be implemented before the next cycle of disbursements.  These recommendations include communication across grounds regarding the milestones and deadlines for submission and the timing of the various types of payments, along with setting clear expectations about when payments should be received by the students. When possible, this timing should be consistent across schools, especially in the case when a student is paid by more than one school.
 
After studying the various mechanisms through which graduate student funding is entered and processed, we identified several areas of concern:
 

• Deadlines by which stipend payments must be entered into their respective systems are not clearly communicated, documented, and followed.
• Differences in the payment calendars for stipends and wages can result in long gaps between pay cycles when a graduate student shifts from receiving a stipend to receiving wages.
• Staff turnover in departments and schools may contribute to the issue of timely processing of payments, especially when staff are on-boarding into new roles or covering multiple roles due to the length of time it can take to fill a staff position.
• Because Workday and SIS are separate systems, reconciliation of payments between the two systems can be difficult.
• Because wages must be entered in Workday to be paid (that is, Workday is the system of record for wage payments), they are inconsistently entered in SAFM for record keeping purposes, which is the system of record for graduate stipends and other forms of graduate financial aid (i.e., tuition, fees, and health insurance).  This limits the University’s ability to use SAFM as the system of record for all graduate student financial support and can result in both missed payments and overpayments to students. 
• Because each school has its own systems/processes for administering graduate student support, there is prolific use of shadow systems (entering data more than once), which creates inefficiencies and increases the opportunity for human error.

 
Recommendations

The Task Force considered a number of options to improve the processes for administering graduate aid.  These recommendations are categorized into those that may be implemented in the immediate term; short term (over the next three months); medium term (over the next six months); and long term (six to twelve months or longer).  Some of these recommendations may require an investment of resources; further study will need to be done to determine implementation costs.

Immediate Term Recommendation

1. Ensure that each school establishes the appropriate deadlines so that graduate aid entries for stipends are entered and approved for processing no later than May 22, 2023.  This will ensure that graduate students receive their stipends no later than June 1, 2023.

Short Term Recommendations

1. Ensure that milestones and established deadlines are clearly published and communicated to school/departmental graduate aid administrators, as well as on a central website to be maintained by the Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs, so that departments can make sure that information is entered in the respective systems (Workday and SAFM) in a timely manner, thereby ensuring that graduate students receive payments on the established timeline.
2. Develop a comprehensive FAQ and Information Website, to be hosted on the Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs website, that clearly communicates information to Graduate Students about:
   1. Payment Calendars, for both wages and stipends
   2. Process for expenditure reimbursements
   3. Requirements associated with I-9 compliance (which may impact the timely payment of wages)
   4. Information about how to secure an emergency loan
3. Schools and departments should develop a process whereby the aging of expenditure reimbursements is monitored to ensure that graduate student reimbursements are processed in a timely manner.   Schools also should consider whether or not it is feasible to move to a meal per diem, rather than an itemizing of meal expenditures, which require receipts.

Medium Term Recommendations

1. Schools should consider developing an automated process (EIB) to upload wage payments for graduate students into Workday, cutting down on duplicate data entry and minimizing errors.  The School of Medicine currently is successfully using an EIB process to upload wage payments, and the School of Engineering will be using a similar electronic process to upload wage payments this summer.
2. Publicize and bolster a user/stakeholder community for those who process graduate aid, hosted by the Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs.  There is a group, led by ITS with support from Student Financial Services, that meets monthly or as needed. This group should meet more regularly, include school/departmental leadership, and provide for listening sessions, monthly user meetings, and knowledge exchange, to identify pain points and process improvements.   
3. Update and advertise user training on the Workday, SIS, and SAFM modules.  There is training available in Workday, and there also are “quick guides” provided on the Departmental Aid Users Group website. These guides need to be reviewed and updated, which is an ongoing process. 
4. Consider modifying the SFS emergency loan policy to allow it to better meet the needs of students who are transitioning from stipends to wages.  For example, for this particular circumstance (graduate students moving from stipends to wages), consider raising the amount of the emergency loan cap (currently set at $750) to the amount of one month’s stipend payment, and extending the payback schedule from one month to a longer period (up to 6 months).

Long Term Recommendations

1. Consider amending the stipend payment dates from a payment date of the 1st of the month (the current process) to the 15th of the month.  This will help to address the long payment gap experienced by students switching from stipend to wages (which can be as long as six weeks between the last stipend payment and the first wage payment).  This would also reduce the variability in stipend payment dates as the 15th of the month is less likely to be impacted by university and bank holidays.
2. Examine staffing levels, recruitment practices, and retention patterns in departments/schools to ensure that there is adequate staffing, cross-training, and temporary coverage to accomplish this work.  It is important to maintain adequate personnel to accomplish the tasks associated with the administration of graduate financial aid.
3. Consider developing and enabling one central system for entering, reporting, monitoring, and accounting for graduate financial aid.  This may include making SAFM the system of record for all graduate aid (stipends, wages, etc.), addressing the utility of independently developed shadow systems, and exploring the possibility of using the SAFM system to help populate the EIB information submitted to Workday, or vice versa.
4. Develop guidance and document the proper workflow around Cross-Unit SAFM entries, which will address the current complications experienced when graduate students are funded across schools (i.e., an engineering student funded by the school of medicine). 
5.  In consultation with department/school administrators and central SFS staff, develop automated audit reports and other end-user reporting that will simplify and enable reconciliation between Workday, SIS, and SAFM, rather than having units rely on multiple reports to accomplish this task.

^[1] Currently, the minimum hourly wage for UVA students serving as a GRA or GTA is $15.63 per hour.  See the Provost’s Wage Authorization for the Academic Areas.

^[2] Note that students are subject to the same rules/requirements as employees.  The process for expense reimbursement is the same, whether the individual being reimbursed is a faculty member, staff member, or student.

Appendix A

Graduate Stipend Task Force

Charge:   Identify the issues that caused the delayed payments experienced in December/January and to make recommendations on how to best address those issues/errors prior to the next disbursement cycle (summer 2023).
 
Membership:

• Eric Donarski, Graduate Student, Chemistry (appointed by the Graduate and Professional Student Council)
• Sarah Doran, Assistant Director, Student Financial Services
• Augie Maurelli, Vice President for Finance and Chief Financial Officer
• Tammy McHale, Senior Associate Dean for Administration & Planning, A&S
• China Scherz, Associate Dean for Graduate Academic Programs and Associate Professor of Anthropology, A&S
• Debra Snow, Graduate Program Administrator, Department of Psychology
• Phillip Trella, Associate Vice Provost for Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs
• Anda Webb, Vice Provost for Administration, Task Force Chair

Appendix B