<p>I'm just curious, because I've heard that this is a type of financial aid that some students get.</p>
<p>Also, is getting a work-study deal rare? </p>
<p>AND, how exactly do they work?
--Do you actually make money, or does all of the money you profit go straight back to the school w/o passing through your hands</p>
<p>You make the money, you keep it. There are various kinds of work-study jobs. At my college, since they have an on-campus vet clinic, they have work-study positions in the kennel, which is where I work. Other work-study jobs might be working in the library or at admissions.</p>
<p>I’m not sure how rare it is, but most of the people I know at my school got work-study. My school’s a private college, though, so it may be more common to get work-study there (private colleges give out better financial aid).</p>
<p>I wasn’t able to get in on the work study, despite being pretty poor.</p>
<p>
Because you didn’t qualify for financial aid, or because you didn’t find a job?</p>
<p>It shouldn’t be too hard to get a work-study award since its federal aid (just like federal loans), but it might be tricky to find a job on campus. Even if you don’t have a federal work-study award you can work on campus if you find a job. (The only difference is that the college won’t be subsidized by the government to hire you.)</p>
<p>At my college most work-study students work in the dining halls, the libraries, various academic departments (as tutors, TAs, etc) and the admissions office, but there’s a number of offices that just hire 1 or 2 students each for clerical work.</p>
<p>If you qualify for work-study (that is, demonstrate financial need), the federal government is subsidizing the cost of your education. You get to keep what you earn (there is a maximum amount you can make in an academic year). Many campus departments like to hire work/study students because they are more affordable to their budgets.</p>
<p>How easy it is to qualify for work-study definitely depends on the school. At mine, no one’s quite sure who does manage to be poor enough for it since I know people whose families are on food stamps with no work-study awards–there are tons of work-study jobs available, but few people can take them. At other schools, I know people who are upper-middle class with work-study jobs.</p>
<p>If you do get a work study award, it works pretty much like any other part-time student job. You go to work, you get paid for the hours you work. Whether or not you can earn more than your designated work-study amount depends on whether your individual workplace has the money to pay you past that point.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.ed.gov/programs/fws/gtepfws.pdf[/url]”>http://www.ed.gov/programs/fws/gtepfws.pdf</a></p>
<p>[Federal</a> Work-Study (FWS) Program](<a href=“http://www.ed.gov/programs/fws/index.html]Federal”>http://www.ed.gov/programs/fws/index.html)</p>
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**</p>
<p>Yeah, don’t expect it to make any sense.</p>
<p>Friends of mine who are able to fly home multiple times during a semester are given work study, and I wasn’t. </p>
<p>Aid is a crap shoot.</p>
<p>"Friends of mine who are able to fly home multiple times during a semester are given work study, and I wasn’t. "</p>
<p>The majority of colleges don’t guarantee to meet 100% of students’ demonstrated financial need (and financial need is always determined by the college, not the student’s family). </p>
<p>Students who are able to fly home frequently may have relatives like grandparents who are contributing to their expenses. They also may have parents who are far overspending their credit cards. Of course, their parents also may have lied on their financial aid forms.</p>
<p>ANOTHER QUESTION: Sorry if this is redundant or something, but if you qualify for a work study, does it reduce your cost of admission or something like that?</p>
<p>Otherwise it seems you could easily work at a restaurant waiting tables–without a salary cap… </p>
<p>Am I wrong?</p>
<p>The major difference between working at a restaurant and working in a WS job is that the restaurant earnings may be held against you for the next years financial aid, the WS earnings will not. A dependent student has @ $3200 in protected income. Anything over that 50% goes to the EFC. So if you earn $5000 in a non WS job your EFC the next year would increase by 900 (5000 - 3200 = 1800. 1800 x 50% = 900) reducing your eligibility for aid. If you make $5000 in a WS job it will have no affect on your EFC. Or if you earn $3000 in a non WS job and another $3500 in a WS job it will not affect your EFC as the non WS $3000 is under the protected amount.</p>
<p>Also FICA taxes (7.65%) are not deducted from WS earnings.</p>
<p>^^ wow thanks, that helps a lot.</p>
<p>One more Q about FinAid in general: If I do qualify for some FA for my freshman year (I hope to be at the University of Washington Seattle), will I have to go through another “stress-period” every year as to see how much FA I will get, or even, if I qualify for FA again?</p>
<p>As in, do FA offers change dramatically for reasons other than a drastic increase in my (or my mom’s) income?</p>
<p>If the income and asset information remain about the same and you are in good academic standing (and most of your aid is federal) then it should not change too drastically. </p>
<p>There are some things that will change. For instance the ACG (Academic Competitiveness Grant), if you qualified for that, is higher sophomore year than freshman year, but is not available after sophomore year. Stafford loan limits increase as you get into higher years. Other grants such as the SMART grant become available in 3rd and 4th year for Pell eligible students majoring in specific subjects (mostly science but some others such as certain foreign languages).</p>
<p>If your school has a lot of institutional aid it would depend on their policies.</p>