<p>In general, do financial aid counselors have any leeway in granting Work Study? I mean, if the results of the FAFSA do not show work study, does a financial aid counselor have the power to override that? (if you are close)?</p>
<p>If $2200 of my son's upcoming wages in Fall Semester of 2010 from his job as an employee of his college could be counted as work study, then he would likely get some free/grant aid for the 2011-2012 year/next FAFSA period.</p>
<p>Work study is awarded to students with demonstrated financial need at the discretion of the college. You would have to ask the college if they were willing to make that change. </p>
<p>If your son receives work study as part of his financial aid package, that might reduce the amount of the grant he might be eligible for because he is getting that amount in another form of financial aid. You need to check this out.</p>
<p>What I was trying to say is, if $2200 of his $7000 is W-2 earnings from 2010 were work study, then when he fills out the 2011-2012 FAFSA early next year, his EFC would be less since you don’t have to take into consideration those workstudy earnings. So for purposes of the 2011-2012 FAFSA, he’d have $4800 of earnings, not $7000 to go into the EFC calculation, right?</p>
<p>He didn’t receive any grant money for 2010-2011, nor did he accept any sub or unsub Stafford loans.</p>
<p>Was he eligible to receive subsidized loans? In our experience, that was what made our kids eligible (or NOT) for work study. If he was not eligible for a subsidized loan, he likely won’t get work study either.</p>
<p>If your EFC is such that he didn’t qualify for need based aid at his school, he will not be awarded work study…work study is a need based financial aid award.</p>
<p>Work study is need based so there must be unmet need (based on FAFSA EFC and the school COA) for the student to be awarded WS. So theoretically if your son has unmet need then he is eligible for WS. But, and it is a big but, WS funds are very limited and a school only has a certain amount to award each year and there is rarely enough funding for every student with need to be awarded WS. The school sets their own criteria for awarding WS and often it goes to the neediest students. My daughter had $4500 in subsidized loans this year but was not awarded WS as they were out of WS funds to award by the time they processed her FAFSA in March (she has had WS in the past). It is likely the WS funds are already awarded at their max at this time of year. Having said that, if he has unmet need it is certainly worth asking, the worst they can say is no. If he does not have unmet need then he is not eligible.</p>
<p>Also not all jobs at the school will be WS jobs so if he wants to keep the same job he might want to check if it that job would be a WS job if he were awarded WS.</p>
<p>He was awarded/offered subsidized loans for 2010-2011. I will have him check with the financial aid office regarding if his student job could be WS.</p>
<p>What is your EFC?</p>
<p>What is the COA of the school?</p>
<p>EFC $11,847
COA $21,580</p>
<p>(For 2010-2011 one kid in college)</p>
<p>He needs to check TWO things.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Does the school STILL have work study money to award and is he eligible to receive it.</p></li>
<li><p>Can he be paid from work study money for the job he currently has?
This may or may not be possible. Some jobs on campus are NOT able to be paid with work study funds. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>Also, you need to know that work study may actually limit the amount of work he can do in a work study job. If he receives a work study award for $2000 and gets a job and earns that amount…he will likely not be able to continue working in that job IF it is funded solely from work study funds.</p>
<p>I guess I’m wondering…he didn’t take any loans this year and he didn’t have any grants…and the bills were paid…and he didn’t have work study. Why the “difference” now? Is he guaranteed to receive this grant money if his money is work study money or is this something he “could” receive?</p>
<p>For 2011-2012 we will have two in college, our AGI has decreased 15% since the previous year (2 year decrease in AGI is 35%), and son’s meager savings will have decreased substantially (he is paying $10k of this year’s COA). By using an EFC calculator, it appears as though he would get free/grant money for 2011-2012 IF some of his projected 2010 W-2 earnings was Work Study. (EFC Projected Parent Contribution for Student ~$3565, Student Contribution~it depends).</p>
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<p>What kind if “efc calculator” were you using? The FAFSA EFC is primarily used to compute the awarding of federally funded need based aid. The only federal “grant” that FAFSA EFC is used for is the Pell Grant. Are you saying that your son’s income being reduced on the FAFSA will reduce YOUR EFC to $3656? I suppose this is possible…but really MOST of his EFC reduction for 2011-2012 is because you will have two kiddos in college. I don’t know the exact caculations (someone else here will surely be able to tell you) but with an EFC of $3656, you son would be eligible for less than $2000 in Pell Grants, I think. And if your second child were to be in college at the same time, with the same EFC (hers sounds like it could be less as her income is lower), she would also get a portion of the Pell. To get the maximum Pell of $5200, your EFC has to be $0.</p>
<p>Now…back to the work study question. Only your son’s college can answer that question. He will have to ask the financial aid folks there. As mentioned earlier, work study funds are limited on each college campus and typically are all awarded by now. But it does no harm to ask.</p>
<p>I will have him check with his school about Work Study.</p>
<p>His school’s financial aid website has a link to College Board’s EFC calculator. Then, once that EFC number is derived, it is plugged back into the school’s ‘Award Estimator’. This estimator includes state grants as well as the Pell grant.</p>
<p>You definitely have to ask. I am an aid officer, and I do not have the authority to give work study to a student who does not have any in his package. The reason is this: We package awards automatically based on multiple criteria. The computer program awards work study as part of the package based on our policies. If a student did not get work study, there was some reason. Work study funding has been long gone, so an aid officer cannot add it to a student’s award package (the fund is locked). However, work study is a pool of funding, and we have to overaward because not all students granted work study will actually find a job (or even attend our school). At several points in the upcoming months, our management will review funding & possibly free up awards. It is good to ask, because you never know …</p>
<p>Great, thanks for the info!</p>