1). Lets say that I have a work study and another job at Chipotle (part time). If I were to earn 10,000 annually from my Chipotle job, how would it affect my FA?
2). How much can a student earn (not counting work study, only the part time job) before it starts to affect their fa?
3). which is better:a) Work study with no job/private cash job and a higher fa or work study with another part time but lower fa?
4). Lets say I keep my 10,000 salary,part-time Chipotle job, where can I put my money so it doesn’t affect my fa? i.e. if I earn 2000 over the summer, can’t I just cash it out so its not in my savings or bank?
A student can earn up to $6570 before income is considered (and ‘hurts you’) on the FAFSA formula. In your example, $3430 x 50% would be $1715 added to your EFC.
You can put your earnings into a 529 account and that will be considered a parental asset and only assessed at 5.6% parental rate rather than at the 20% student asset rate. If you have $10,000 in a 529, it will increase your EFC at the most $560 (but your parents get an asset allowance and we don’t know if they have assets that exceed their allowance.
FAFSA requires you to include all assets whether they are in a bank account or your pocket on the day you file…
I think you have the idea that FAFSA is going to get you so much money that you won’t have to pay anything for college and can save all your own money. IF, and it is a big IF, you have a $0 EFC, that will get you $5920 in a Pell grant. If you can find a college that costs less than that, you won’t need to spend any of your earnings. Whether your EFC is $0 will really depend more on your parents’ income and assets than yours.
Run the FAFSA4caster to get an estimate of your FAFSA EFC. That’s used to determine if you get a Pell Grant. If your EFC is over $5k (if your parents earn more than ~$60k/year), you won’t qualify for a Pell Grant. The maximum Pell Grant is only $5900/year, so you’re really better off working and saving.
How much can your parents pay for school? College is usually paid for with parent contributions, the federal student loans, student work earnings, and sometimes merit aid. Are your stats high enough to qualify for merit anywhere? If finances are a concern, you need a financial safety. Are there any colleges that you could commute to from home?
I would add, in response to this question that it depends on the type of FA we are talking about. If FA is grants (ie you don’t have to pay them back) then higher FA is better. If it comes as loans, then a lower FA.
You should also consider how much you can actually work while in school.
My D is a full-time student. Not premed but pre-pharmacy curriculum in the first two years is pretty similar.
She took bio 1 and 2, chem 1 and 2 with labs in the first year. While on paper that were 8 credits of science classes, in reality she had 3 weekly lectures for each, plus 2 recitation sessions for bio, and one 4 hr lab/recitation session for chem. It added up to about 14 hr of total class time a week, plus homework, lab reports, studying.
She didn’t work during the school year that first year. She had some local scholarships.
She worked and earned around $3,000 in the summer.
In her second year she took Ochem 1 and 2 and had a campus job for around 5 hrs a week and earned around $1,000. She earned another $4,000 or so in the summer.
I would recommend to find an affordable college, instate public if possible, where you can get merit and remaining costs are affordable with minimal loans, if premed is your goal.
I would not recommend for you to be a full-time premed student, and continue working at Chipotle off campus. You need time to study and an on campus job would be more flexible with working around your class schedule and exams and such.
On FAFSA there is an income protection amount for dependent students that goes up every year. This year it is $6,570.
Also federal, state and social security taxes are deducted as well, before the income is assessed towards FAFSA EFC at 50%.
Federal work study income gets subtracted from total income on FAFSA.