We received one of DD’s financial aid packages and I was pretty shocked to see that the work study amount was $3100. I know all work study jobs on this specific campus pay $15/hr. That’s a lot of hours per semester! This amount is twice what other schools offered.
Is the maximum award amount per student set by the feds? I realize that each college has a set amount of federal work study dollars to allocate and they can set their own amounts but my worry is that this would go up each year so I want to find out what is the max and if she already has it.
She doesn’t have to work all the hours necessary to earn the whole award amount; that’s just the maximum dollars that are available. Her work schedule will be based on what the employer would like and what she is willing/able to do.
Also, it’s the max ‘work study’ offered (WS is not included as earnings for FA calcs - that’s the only difference in WS and any other job). Student can earn more than that if desired.
I’ve seen WS as high as 4k for a school. Note that this is ‘possible’ money and should not be included in calculating your net price really.
So we could potentially see an increase in that amount, maybe even up to $4K? I thought there would be a federal max “rule” of some kind but despite searching, never found any limits which is why I posted the question here.
I realize that she doesn’t HAVE to work all those hours but that is part of her award and if we parents are sure we can’t cover that “just in case” I am not sure that is an “affordable” financial aid package. The work study and the student summer contributions are excessive in my opinion. The summer contribution is not going to happen where we live, no jobs for teenagers, not even McDonald’s plus she doesn’t have a car, sigh. I thought the hard part was getting accepted!
That’s usually the amount per year, so at $15/hr, 10 hours per week, 10 weeks per semester=$1500/sem.
At most schools work study is at $10 (or less) per hour, so they are working more hours. Many of the unskilled (non lab, non teaching assistant) jobs are at $7.75-$9/hr.
My D got $3500 in work study in one package and is also expected to contribute $3150 from a summer job. I think that her contributing $6650 towards her education freshman year is absolutely unrealistic. But this was a “meets full needs” school and I guess they fulfilled their promise, even if it’s pure fantasy.
I would not put all of my eggs in the work study basket, especially if you are counting on paying your direct costs using work study monies. Federal work study is expected to take a big hit in the budget along with the elimination of SEOG
Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I don’t think it’s that much? My friend and I earn a little over 8k in a school year, and we’re both paid $10/hr for our campus jobs. We work the maximum allowed per week.
Is it hard? Sure. But it’s definitely doable. So I don’t think less than half the hours we work is really that bad. 10 hours a week is what my school recommends freshman stick to. I think it’s fine.
I also don’t think 10 hours a week and 3500 in summer is unrealistic. Expecting the first $6k to come from the student is pretty normal. How much do you think they should pay?
<<<
The summer contribution is not going to happen where we live, no jobs for teenagers, not even McDonald’s plus she doesn’t have a car, sigh. I thought the hard part was getting accepted!
[QUOTE=""]
[/QUOTE]
That can be an issue. Many schools expect a student to earn/save a couple thousand during the summer. Maybe contact the school and discuss this issue with them. Be prepared…town size, no teen jobs, etc.
Thank you for all of your replies. @SuburbMom , D got about the same and I think it’s very high in comparison to other packages she received. Most of the summer earnings are more modest amounts in the $2200-$2500 range and the work study amounts are very wide ranging but this is the max by far of any package.
I am talking about an incoming freshman just to be clear. Leaving home to find a summer job before even starting college seems very unrealistic considering no car and then having housing and food costs on top of whatever a kid just out of high school could make @CourtneyThurston I agree with you that after getting a bit of experience, kids actually IN college can apply to many, many programs and internships when they have some skills employers actually want.
Thanks @mom2collegekids for understanding the point I was trying to make. I am not sure there are very many areas of the country where kids can earn that much straight out of high school but certainly not here in our town. I will try and contact this college to discuss, thanks for the idea. Sometimes, we just assume “it is what it is” and forget that we can at least ask questions!
@sybbie719 That is really good info. I imagine if the work study money does go away, then these meet full need schools with have a hole they will have to fill in some way, whether it be to increase their grants or increase the summer earnings or simply turn the federal work study funds into casual on campus work. It will be something to watch down the road.
I absolutely agree that one can not count on these funds to pay direct costs and that is where the problem stems because the costs for the student become unrealistic for an entering freshman. Obviously, summer earnings and work study amounts over $6K is NOT just going to spending money and travel, books and personal supplies. An amount greater than $6K is more than those unbilled costs. In effect, it means that we would have not only the parent share but a good portion of the student share going toward billed costs.
the loss of federal funding (which is the major source of funding for federal work study) does not necessarily mean that colleges will make up the money in gift aid. They contribute very little to wrk study.
What may happen is they may scrape together some funding for students with “0” federal EFC ( that proposal is also on the table to only provide it for the poorest of students with full pell and a 0 EFC. Some may not have the additional money to give. In most cases I can see the student contribution increasing or if things get really bad shifting away from 100% demonstrated need to covering direct costs only or something in between. I would not expect any additional monies.
I relocated for three summers before I started college. Sometimes necessary if you want to pursue top/lucrative opportunities. No car was not a problem thanks to public transit where I moved. Just something to think about if it’s really financially necessary to make a lot in the summers.
My WS amount was 3k/semester and only made $8/hour. I went over my WS amount every year and didn’t work major hours (especially since my WS job was my tack-on job, not my main job).
3100/15/30 (presumed) weeks = less than 7 hours/week.