How much do students typically earn through nine months of part-time work study?
I googled this and came up with no conclusion. I don’t know how many hours a day of work study is reasonable, nor how many days a week.
No “typical” amount. Each student can only earn the amount allocated for,work study at a work study job. So if your student receives $2000 in work study, your student can earn up to $2000 in work study earnings.
The largest WS award I’ve seen is $4000 a year…but your student would need to either work a ton of hours or have a very high paying job to earn that much.
Most kids we know work about 10 hours a week.
Work study is unearned money, don’t count on it when you do your financial plan. You need those money upfront long before you may earn them.
Usually it is about 10-15 hours a week, and about $7.50 to $10/hr. There will be weeks you work less, weeks you might be sick or have a lot of tests or want to leave campus for the weekend and give up your hours.
At 10 hours per week at $10 per hour, you can earn $1,500 per 15-week semester, or $1,385.25 after payroll tax. Over two semesters, that would be net $2,770.50.
Of course, if you find a higher paying job, or work more hours, you could earn more. But you need to figure how much you can work without compromising your study time. If you work less, or the job pays less, than the amount earned will be less.
A work study offer means that some on-campus jobs will prefer to hire you over a non-work-study student, since it subsidizes your pay at a qualifying job. But some of these jobs may not let you work more than the work study amount.
If you are a full-time student employed in a Federal Work-Study job at your school less than half-time, then there are no employment taxes (7.65% FICA) withheld so in the above example, you would have $1500 and not $1385.25, before income tax withholding, if any.
Although my daughter is on work study i really don’t know much other than what she tells me. She said it was a huge mistake to do because she would get paid more otherwise, have more job options, now cant get hired for a nonwork study job on campus and difficult to switch jobs. I cannot say this is the way it is everywhere.
Your daughter is most likely very poorly informed if she believes that. Work-study eligible employers love work-study students because their pay is subsidized.
She should switch jobs if she thinks she can get paid more elsewhere. No one is going to discriminate because your job was work-study (if they even know).