<p>I'm attending a private school; my parents pay a bit over $15k/semester. Neither of my parents is facing job cuts or pay cuts or anything and we didn't lose much, if anything, in the stock market, but everything is getting more and more expensive and I feel like I should be helping out a lot more than I actually am.</p>
<p>I have a scholarship and borrowed the maximum amount possible for Stafford loans. This coming semester I only have about $1k that I can chip in towards the bill, but hopefully next year I will be an RA, which pays basically what room & board costs, so that will all be taken care of. I do not have work-study but I do have a job; I don't get many hours so it's basically just spending money. I do, however, have a job at home and next summer I'm going to look for a full-time job or else I'll temp again like I did last summer (and hated every minute sitting behind a desk but oh well). My parents vetoed me taking out a private loan when I suggested that as an option, though I probably wouldn't have been able to get one anyway.</p>
<p>If I go to financial aid, do you think they would give me a work-study job even though I already have an on-campus job? I have several friends who don't have work-study but did get jobs through the finaid office so I know it's possible, I just don't know if they'd allow me to even apply because of the job I already have. I know it won't hurt to ask either way, though.</p>
<p>And, what else can I do to help? I just feel frustrated about being so dependent on my parents, and clueless about what else I can do- and they won't give me suggestions beyond "keep working and pay the interest on your loan on time". Thoughts? Suggestions?
Thanks. (:</p>
<p>work/study is only available to students receiving financial aid. Sounds like you are doing just fine, and so are your parents. Just remember to thank them (profusely) for the gift of education that they are giving you! :)</p>
<p>Keep up GPA and make sure to apply to Returning Student scholarships, if something like this is available at your school. These are usually not renewable, so need to apply every year. My D. got additional $6500 for her Sophmore year, so we are paying only about $4000 for whole sophmore year including Room & Board. She is also working and volunteering, but she knows that academics is priority in general and for financial considerations because of merit scholarships. We actually telling her that we greatly appreciate her efforts and thankful that she is keeping the cost of her UG low by working extremely hard on her academics.</p>
<p>Work/Study is a system whereby the federal government chips in a certain portion of the wages paid to the student and the college or individual prof pay the rest. The wage remains the same whether the student is on work/study or not. If you already have a campus job, there is no sense applying for work study which goes anyway to students on financial aid. There may in fact be jobs available either on campus or outside which pay more than what you would get, so if you think you can work more hours, you might want to look into those. When I was a graduate student, one of the local Chinese restaurants seemed full of MIT students working there as waiters.
As others have said, however, academics should be your priority. Kudos for you to think about your parents; let them know how much you appreciate their support.</p>
<p>You're doing a great job, and the best gift you can give your parents is to stay focused on your academics, do your best job, and graduate happy with minimal stress. On reading your initial post a second time, geek_son and I agreed that you really couldn't do much more to help out without quitting school. ;)</p>
<p>That said, I will tell you of an option that worked for me: I funded my graduate degree through tuition waivers, a benefit of a full-time staff position at the university I attended. A similar option /may/ be available to you if you can land a staff (not student) job with benefits; however, you'd want to read the fine print to make sure the benefit doesn't kick in five years after the job starts (a la Princeton) or something like that. And because I had to go part-time and work my classes in around my job, it took me seven years to get the grad degree. You might find that unacceptable; for me, it was the only real option.</p>