Tuition Reduction Benefit Supplements – Spring 2020

Dear Deans, Chairs, Faculty Members and Graduate Coordinators:

This spring, the university will again award Tuition Reduction Benefit (TRB) supplements to assist graduate students with full-time appointments as teaching assistants (TAs) and assistant instructors (AIs). The supplements will provide support while the university implements the recommendations of the Graduate Education Task Force to improve graduate student compensation.

As a change this semester, the provost has agreed to provide funds for TRB supplements (for up to nine credit hours) to graduate students employed as AIs and TAs, including those who receive support from their departments to pay the TRB gap.

This expands the support provided during the 2019 fall semester, when the provost provided funds for AIs and TAs who received bills for a portion of tuition.

During the spring semester, TRB supplements will be applied to tuition bills for nine credit hours for students with AI or TA appointments of 20 hours or more. Students with AI or TA appointments of 10 – 19 hours will be awarded TRB supplements that are half of what students with appointments of 20 hours or more will receive.

Visit the TRB website to review supplement amounts for qualifying students and additional information on supplements.

Long-term solutions to addressing the TRB will be identified by the task force and implemented in the coming years. The task force’s official recommendations will be delivered to the provost in December 2019.
On Nov. 12, students who have registered for classes will receive their first tuition bill. TRB supplements will be distributed to students appointed as AIs and TAs as direct payments to their tuition bill leading up to the start of the spring semester before the tuition payment deadline.

In order to ensure that our business staff has adequate time to apply TRB stipends, we ask that departments and programs please enter spring 2020 TA/AI appointments as soon as possible.

Current TA/AI assignments can be extended into the spring 2020 semester using the Mass End Employment Date process or the Mass Change Job Details (Transfer) Process. Additional details will be distributed to campus HR personnel in late November and Workday processing guidance will be discussed at the Student Employment Forum on Dec. 4, 2019.
During the fall semester, some students experienced delays in receiving supplements. We’d like to thank these students for their patience. The Graduate School will do everything to ensure the timely delivery of supplements this spring semester.

While there is still much work to do to ensure stipends across campus are competitive with peer programs, this is a first step toward addressing graduate compensation.

We have heard the many voices on campus speaking out on this issue, and we look forward to continuing to work with units across campus to implement task force recommendations, ensure competitive stipends and foster the best graduate experience for students.

Please direct questions about the TRB supplements to: graduate_studies@utlists.utexas.edu.
Sincerely,

MARK J. T. SMITH
Dean of the Graduate School
Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs
The University of Texas at Austin

DAINA RAMEY BERRY
Associate Dean of the Graduate School
Oliver H. Radkey Regents Professor of Histor
The University of Texas at Austin

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