About Awards

The Awards system, a subset of the Financial Resource Management System (FRMS), is used to process various types of benefits for students and other individuals.

Currently, two categories of benefits can be processed through the Awards system:

Scholarship/Fellowship Awards

The Scholarship/Fellowship document is used to process departmental scholarship/fellowship payments. It can be used to make a single, one-time payment or multiple payments scheduled over an entire fiscal year. Funds are encumbered upon final approval of the document.

The document is also used to process one-time cash prize payments. Note: Cash prizes paid to employees must be nonwork related. Work-related cash prizes for employees must be paid through Payroll Services.

The document automatically verifies the registration status of the recipient, based on the required specifications, before each payment occurs. All payments will be made using direct deposit as the default payment method with options for check pickup and U.S. mail. Bars (money owed to The University of Texas at Austin) will be deducted automatically from any payments before the balance is paid to the recipient. Bars are not deducted from cash prize payments.

All departmental scholarships/fellowships and cash prizes can be created, monitored, and updated online in the Financial Resource Management System (FRMS) system in UT Direct. From the Scholarship/Fellowship home page you can search for documents, view details of approved awards, create a new award, or correct an award.

Tuition Reduction Benefit Awards

Tuition reduction benefit documents are used to provide tax-free, employment related tuition credits to students employed as teaching assistants (TAs), assistant instructors (AIs), and graduate research assistants (GRAs).

Tuition reduction benefit documents can be processed before student assignments are approved so that students will have the benefit applied to their tuition liability the HRMS assignment is final approved.

Warnings will be displayed on a tuition reduction benefit document until the 20th class day of the semester if the recipient’s assignment is not final approved. If awards are approved and the student is never assigned in the intended position, the award will be cancelled and tuition will be due from the student.

After the 20th class day of a semester, students must have approved assignments in the intended job title in order to receive a tuition reduction benefit.