1. Enrolling in Direct Deposit (Workday and my.uchicago.edu)

To ensure timely disbursal of university-sourced income, we recommend enrolling in direct deposit through both the Workday system and my.uchicago.edu portal as soon as you have access to a US bank account. Only US bank accounts can be added into Workday.

  • Categories of payments issued through Workday: PhD primary funding (fellowship stipend, pedagogical/research training assignment), supplemental stipends, reimbursements, prizes and awards, and pay for other on-campus roles.
  • Categories of payments issued through my.uchicago.edu: emergency assistance from the Bursar (emergency loans/emergency grants), loan refunds, and student account refunds.

Updating Payment Elections

If you do not have access to a US bank account to enroll in direct deposit, payments issued from the university will disburse via paper check mailed to the address on file. Checks cannot be picked up from any campus location. It is your responsibility to ensure there is accurate address information is in your Workday record (See “Updating Your Primary Address” below). If an address is not added to your Workday profile, the default address will be the primary address listed on your my.uchicago.edu portal. If the default address is outside of the US, the paper check will be mailed overseas.

Payments issued via check cannot be reissued via direct deposit for at least 10 days (US mailing address), and in some situations up to 30 days (international mailing address). Please contact gradhelp@uchicago.edu if you have not received a payment. In some situations, receiving a payment through an international wire transfer may be preferable, especially for students who are outside of the US and do not have a US bank account. International wire transfers are issued via Flywire and incur a processing fee (typically 1.25-2.5%) which is taken from the payment itself. International wire transfers must be specifically requested by the administrator who is submitting your payment via the “Ask a Payroll Question” form in Service Now. If you have questions about the process for requesting and receiving an international wire transfer, please contact gradhelp@uchicago.edu.

2. Checking Your Payslips in Workday

You can view detailed records of all payments disbursed to you via Workday by reviewing your payslips. If you are looking to find out how much you received in funding during a calendar/tax-year, check your final payslip from that year and look at the total amount in the column labelled YTD (year-to-date). Checking pay slips is especially helpful for declaring appropriate income amounts if you will be paying quarterly estimated taxes.

3. Uploading Personal Documents to Workday

When you complete any paperwork associated with payment from the University—tax paperwork to receive fellowship stipend, completing a W-9, or paperwork related with job onboarding—you will need to upload this paperwork into your Workday profile so it can be verified by Payroll/Financial Services. If you have a Social Security Number (SSN), your card should be scanned and loaded into Workday for verification purposes.

4. Updating Your Primary Address

Review and/or update your address as soon as you have access to Workday, or when a change occurs, to make sure this information is accurate. Your Workday record must accurately reflect your physical location and your tax responsibilities may depend on your location—we recommend reviewing this information at least once per academic year.

If you are making an update to your address in Workday, please make sure you are also updating your address in your my.uchicago.edu profile. Tax forms are mailed to the primary address listed in both locations during the months of January and February, since these forms—the W-2, 1042-S, 1098-T—are prepared by different offices at the university. If you have questions about what forms you should be receiving, did not receive forms you were expecting, or have general questions related to tax responsibilities, please email gradhelp@uchicago.edu.

5. Updating Tax Withholdings (Federal and State)

Federal and state withholdings can be updated electronically in Workday, and you can make changes to this information at any time—you do not need to wait for a qualifying life event or the start of a new academic year. To make updates to your withholding elections, you will need information regarding your income, current rate of withholding, desired rate of withholding, effective date, and marital status. If you have questions about completing your tax withholding forms, please email gradhelp@uchicago.edu.