<p>At most colleges, any students can get jobs, but usually the work-study students are giving priority for positions -- at least during the first few weeks of the semester, and at least for jobs not requiring special skills. Partly this is to make sure that the jobs are there for them --and of course, because they are federally subsidized, it saves the college money if most positions are filled by work-study students. </p>
<p>Hourly wages & pay varies. In many urban areas, there may be off-campus jobs nearby, primarily in food service, that pay better for the student. In other words -- the non work-study kid may do better as a Starbucks barista than having the equivalent job in an on-campus cafe. (Work-study kids have an additional benefit that their earnings don't get subtracted out of their financial aid, which may favor keeping those jobs).</p>
<p>My son's job at MIT is sometimes paid, sometimes credit, through the UROP (Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program). He went off and found it freshman year and is still working there three years later. Not work study, utterly unrelated to grants or finaid, or whatever.</p>
<p>My daughter's job at Reed as a life guard is also just a campus job open to anyone. She's also had it since freshman year.</p>
<p>My gal has also worked off-camput - the one problem she ran into was that those jobs were alot less flexable - especially for holiday breaks and over summers - At least with a campus job - it is most likely that the schedule will be worked around and breaks/summers are not an issue - man a job is there again in the fall when the students to school</p>
<p>The Brown Daily Herald did a story comparing work-study programs at the Ivies in fall 2005. Here's the first two paragraphs:</p>
<p>Entry-level student workers at Yale University can expect to make $3 per hour more and work an average of 3 hours per week less than their counterparts at Brown. Meanwhile, first-years on work-study at Princeton University have no choice in the jobs they receive. Although student employment is a common feature across the Ivy League, the jobs students hold, hours they work and wages they receive vary widely from school to school.</p>
<p>Financial aid packages at most universities and the other Ivies include a "self-help" component that asks students to foot the bill for books, travel and other personal expenses, usually by working. Students are expected to provide $2,300 for the academic year at Brown, $2,500 at Princeton, $3,650 at Harvard University and $4,400 at Yale. Students sometimes fulfill this obligation with additional loans or outside scholarships.</p>
<p>Our S found excellent work as a Sunday School and Hebrew language teacher at the community's synagogue. They so enjoyed employing college students that they moved the hours to Sunday afternoon, in order to better attract college students. He met his work-study requirement this way.</p>
<p>Our D found it hard to keep up with coursework and do an on-campus job, so she just worked harder over summers. The college didn't mind, as long as she earned her expected share during the calendar year. She was a camp counselor and an actress in a Renaissance Faire.</p>
<p>Another good place to look for work is at the disabilities office of the campus, as they need note-scribes for learning disabled students, readers for blind students, and more.</p>
<p>My S does not have a work study job but works 2 days a week at a grocery store a couple of blocks away from campus. They have been good about working with his schedule. He worked for the same grocery chain in high school and was able to transfer to the store in his college town. He is a customer service clerk and makes $9 something an hour.</p>
<p>Many campus offices hire both work-study students and direct-hire students. The difference is where the money that is paid to them comes from. A work-study student gets money that comes from the Federal Government, while a direct-hire student gets money from the office budget. Some offices can only hire federal work-study students, while others only can hire direct-hire students, while others may have a certain amount of each type of position in their office. A student who is not eligible for federal work study cannot get a job that is only for work-study students, but I think a work-study student could get a direct-hire job, they just would not be guaranteed the amount from their financial aid package(but I'm not sure if this money is a guarantee anyway). A student receiving federal work-study money can only work until they make the amount of money in their financial aid package, not any more, while there is not a limit on how much a direct-hire student can make (although most Universities limit the number of hours a student can work on-campus per week.) Usually it is easier to get a job on campus if you qualify for work-study- there are simply more jobs funded by the federal government because offices don't want to pay out of their own budget. Both types of student workers receive checks through the payroll department.</p>
<p>Check the website of the college/U student attends. UW, like above schools, has jobs ranging from food service to lab research. I was an honors chemistry major who worked food service a couple of years, a medical school friend who took a different freshman chemistry course ended up working for a chemistry professor who was studying moon rocks. There are jobs for the university and for the Residence halls- in my day jobs were scarce and you had to live in the dorms to work there, now may be different. On campus jobs recognize student schedules and there is a certain camaraderie, we were yelled at once for singing Christmas carols too loudly on the dining hall scrape line...we also contemplated if we could get credit for broompushing 101... There are usually many jobs available to any student regardless of financial status, some jobs are designated work study, but by no means all.</p>