<p>My question is simple, is it possible to do a work-study for say 7k then take out another 7k in need-based loans? I'm just trying to figure out if there would be anyway to go to an out of state university without sinking too far into debt</p>
<p>As a freshman, your maximum Direct Loan would be $5500. I’ve never seen a work study award for $7000. The most I’ve ever seen is $4000… And I think that is higher than most work study awards.</p>
<p>Our daughter had a $3500 work study award. She had a high paying job for her school ($5 an hour ABOVE minimum wage) and barely was able to earn $3500 working 10-15 hours a week when school was in session, and on some school breaks. Even when she worked full time (not work study funds) in the summer, she didn’t earn $7000 in one school year. </p>
<p>I think you are being very overly optimistic thinking about a $7000 work study job.</p>
<p>If you are very low income, you might get a Perkins loan…but those are not guaranteed. Actually neither is work study.</p>
<p>You’re not going to get awarded 7k in work study. The most I’ve personally seen is 3k. You might be able to get 3k in WS and another 4k in a part time job, but it would require working ~30 hours/week at minimum wage (less if you get paid more). </p>
<p>Loans YOU can get out in your name, provided that you are a typical dependent student are capped at $5500 for your first year (6500 second, 7500 third and fourth). You can sometimes get awarded Perkins loans but they’re only for the neediest students and the funds are very limited.</p>
<p>I have been given 4k in work-study, but that was extremely difficult to even come close to meeting-- at $8.25 and a college rule that one can work no more than 19.5 hours a week.</p>
<p>thumper1 is correct though-- at many schools, work-study money is limited, and many students also find it difficult to get a w-s job-- they’re not promised, and you have to go out and find them.</p>
<p>Publics aren’t likely going to give much WS to an OOS student…they may not give ANY at all. WS is limited and publics need to give as much aid as possible to their instate kids.</p>
<p>Usually frosh who get WS, aren’t given much more than about $2000. Another issue, as mentioned, it’s hard for students to WORK all of their WS hours if given too much. WS jobs are often M-F (no weekends) so that often limits students to working only about 8-12 hours a week.</p>
<p>You mention trying to avoid much debt for an OOS school. YOU can’t borrow much anyway. You’re limited to $5,500 for frosh year. To borrow more (bad idea) would require qualified co-signers. </p>
<p>What is your situation? How much will your parents pay? What is your likely EFC? What state are you in? What schools are you applying to? What are your stats?</p>
<p>ok, you’re a NY resident, and you’re a transfer student…</p>
<p>I was recently thinking about transferring to University of Michigan and I really concerned about how much financial aid I might receive if I decide I want to go[ after applying and hopefully getting accepted]. Is there anyway I can add University of Michigan onto my FAFSA account and just receive an official letter from them? The calculator on their website gives a pretty big range for how much I’ll have to take out (owe) each year and it would just give me more comfort if I received an official estimate from their offices.</p>
<p>You need to understand that you’re not going to get much/any aid, and you can’t borrow much ($7500 as a junior).</p>
<p>what has been your FAFSA EFC this last 2 years? How much do your parents pay each year towards college. Most likely a NY public will be your affordable choice.</p>
<p>My son was given a $5000 work study this year so it is possible.</p>
<p>Most schools limit WS to 15 hours or 20 hours. Most of them pay either minimum wage or $1 over. Assuming 8.25, is 165 a week. Which is $725 a month. If you take summer classes and they have work study available over the summer(far from certain), you could probably get $7,000 under all the best possible situations. But that’s for the whole year, not a single semester. $7,000 a semester would be a full time job.</p>
<p>
Well, I just learned a new word 
Kind of amazed I’ve never seen it before.</p>
<p>“Haze the frosh!”</p>
<p>Getting a work study award and getting the hours from a job are two separate things. I’ve seen some high workstudy awards, and in some cases, the colleges do have guaranteed WS jobs for kids, but in others, the reality is that as a freshman finding the job to get those hours and then dollars is an additonal stumbling block. My SIL’s niece got a small work study award that she could not initially use. Couldn’t find anything to fit her schedule, and it was just easier for her to get her own job. She’s one intrepid young woman, so she got a job that gave her enough hours and flexibility to make more than the measly work study award. But later in the year, she did accidently fall upon a work study position that did work out terrifically. But that was in March, and she needed money through out the year. Fortunately for her, she covered her expenses through the job she found on her own, and did not depend on what the school had listed for possibilities for work study. </p>
<p>Some schools have plenty of work study jobs, some don’t. It often takes a while to figure out what’s available and how to best find the jobs to suit your schedule as a freshman since you are adjusting to so many other things new at a school. Als, a school awards the work study and it’s not always getting the award. Depends on what they have available and finding outside jobs is highly dependent upon what a school has available. Where my son and niece go to college, getting an outside job is pretty easy, so a work study award is not such a coup. Just means you have to work towards your financial aid award instead of to reduce your EFC. The same when the DIrect loans are included in your package. You no longer have them to pay your EFC.</p>
<p>If you get work study, it is VERY important to apply early and often. Most schools post jobs well before the school year starts. If you wait until the school year starts…you will be late to the game. And you can’t be picky. Sure…it’s nice to have a desk job in the library…but if all that is left is dining hall jobs…you take the dining hall job. Some kids I know have had problems finding a WS job because they were simply too picky.</p>
<p>Getting a work study award and getting the hours from a job are two separate things</p>
<p>Very true! Especially since many/most WS jobs are only M-F and don’t include late nights. So, the student is usually limited to working during “business hours” which can mean only a couple of hours a day. Plus, the student is supposed to have a good amount of time each day to dedicate towards studies. </p>
<p>I know that someone above mentions getting a $5k ws award. I wonder if that’s an upper-classman? It seems almost dangerous to award that much to an incoming frosh…the student would be working so much that grades could be affected. </p>
<p>I had a WS job back in the stone ages, and I worked a few hours after classes 4 days per week. It was one of the more-rare off-campus jobs at a high school. (it actually was one of my most favorite jobs ever…working for the Athletic Director and the head football coach…got treated like a queen. lol)</p>
<p>In those days, the monitoring wasn’t so great, so I actually ran thru some of my second semester award during the first semester. So, I completely ran out of WS (actually exceeded it) by around March. That was before computers so if you over-ran your WS before you were notified, you still got paid for working those extra hours. </p>
<p>My kids didn’t have WS, but they were employed by the school as paid tutors at $10 an hour…not bad since they still got paid when students didn’t show up and they were allowed to do homework during those times. They usually worked about 8-12 hours per week and got paid every 2 weeks. Their paychecks were about $150-200 each pay period (but their pay was higher than typical WS rate).</p>
<p>If a student works about 8 months (taking into account holidays, breaks, exam weeks, etc), then that’s about 32 weeks or 16 pay periods. Even if a student was lucky enough to net 200 each pay period, that’s $3200 per school year. (hope I did my math right…haven’t had coffee yet…lol)</p>
<p>as you can see, it would be hard for a student to earn $4k+ in work study unless somehow summer hours were also included.</p>
<p>It so depends upon the school as to how work study is run and what is available. My kids went to LACs, top 25 univerisity, in state uni, OOS uni, and they all had plenty of work opportunities though they did not qualify for financial aid. They worked side by side with work study kids and for many of those kids, when the work study money ran out, they were just shifted to an non work study status and things just rolled along with no issue. But they also all went to schools where there were jobs aplenty for work study and non work study kids. FInding work was not a problem.</p>
<p>BUt if you go to a school in a area where there are very few jobs, even in school jobs are fought over by those who need money and live nearby. In a community where a freind lives, finding summer or part time work is just about impossible as there are simply no jobs out there. The adults, with famiiles are fighting iover hours as they come up. The jobs like lifeguarding, cafeteria work are grabbed by eager towns folks at minimum wage. ANYTHING, any job is considered a big coup there. There is a little college in the town and those who work there have their family members, friends, etc in line first for any little job that comes up. So work study is valuable as it’s the only game in town, but even then, finding anything on the limited job list is difficult to mesh with a schedule and forget working for the school if you don’t have work study. Hardly any awards given anyways. Her kids got like $500 in WS, and the one who went there never could find any job to use even that amount. </p>
<p>My one son also worked as an official tutor and was paid #12 an hour, more recently. It was cush job for him, because he was like the old Maytag repairman most of the time and he studied those hours in the tutoring/help offices. And like Mom2coll, he made about a hundred or more a week which took care of his discretionary costs just fine. But, bear in mind, his tution, room, board and books were all paid for as well as plane tickets home three times a year. It was all gravy that he was making.</p>
<p>My other son got a great job with great pay, but after working it about a month ran into conflicts and had to let it go. But then again, he had his tution, room ,board, transportation and books covered. It was for some future things he was making that money and for some things that came up. His true nut was covered, and even so he got scrunched when the job fell through and other things came up.</p>
<p>DD worked at the call center at her school the first term freshman year. It was open 24/7. She worked the evening shift a couple of days a week. Jobs in the admissions office required Saturday morning work, and the library media center was open practically all night as well. The dining halls are open on weekends, and many have evening hours as well. Desk jobs in the dorm lobbies are also 24/7. </p>
<p>There are plenty of work study jobs that are NOT during class time…but you can’t be picky. Back in the stone age, I worked breakfasts in the dining hall. Yep…I had to be there at 6 a.m.</p>
<p>So did I, Thumper, but not on work study. I started taking the Sunday breakfast shifts and that was also my meal for that day. A lot of the girls on my dorm floor followed suit as we all could use extra money, and the cafeteria was right there. We went on reduced meal plans, worked there for food to fill the gap and it was all good.</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>Yes, there are some jobs that are 7 days a week, but I don’t know what proportion those are.</p>
<p>At my sons’ undergrad, WS jobs aren’t in the dining halls or the Starbucks-like places on campus. Many times when you call a dept office you’ll get a WS student answering the phone. </p>
<p>Many times, the jobs that require a certain skill, like life guard, tutoring, those jobs aren’t WS.</p>
<p>It does all depend upon the school. My kids life guarded and tutored on an non WS basis side by side with kids who were getting paid through WS. When their allotment ran out, they were then paid out of university funds, but unless they told you, you would not know which kids were on WS and which were being paid by the college.</p>
<p>Some very nice departmental jobs are work study only, I know, at some schools. My niece got one. She managed to parlay it into a near full time job, but the department really had to work to get some additonal fund to pay her, as her award was very small and ran out quickly. They managed to come up with some new posiiton just for her.</p>
<p>That is where WS can be very nice, in that some departments have some plum jobs for kids on the program. They can’t afford to pay the kids out of their own fund, so only WS kids are eligible for the jobs. There are advantages to getting work study, but it all depends upon the school, the award, the jobs available, ability to get those jobs,… a lot of luck involved as well, certainly things not in your control. I never got anything other than cafeteria, service type work on campus when was at school. I did better off campus in terms of type of work, but others had a whole other experience. One woman never left the university. Started with workstudy and now she’s head of some department at my old school.</p>
<p>I agree that it depends wildly on the school. My tutoring center ran until 8 PM and then was open on Sunday for our students, which is the only reason I was able to approach 19.5 hours. Other nontraditional work week jobs include library circulation desks, the gym, and breakfasts. However, I think what you’ve learned, OP, is that this is not the solution to attending an OOS uni.</p>
<p>Another thing to remember…monies earned through work study are NOT included in the FAFSA calculation for need based aid the following year.</p>
<p>WS jobs vary wildly by campus. At DD’s school, lifeguards and dining hall were both work study AND non-work study…meaning anyone could actually have those jobs. So were jobs in admissions and at the call center. </p>
<p>The point here is that the student needs to start looking early. They might not land the dream WS job initially but once they are there, they can keep an eye out for WS openings…which do occur during the year.</p>
<p>If you mature enough, you could be resident assistant at your school.
</p>
<p>Please…do not count on getting a job as a resident assistant. You might…but you might not. These are very competitive positions and typically have many many applicants for each opening. </p>
<p>In addition, the OP to this thread is a transfer student. In the vast majority of cases, students in their first year at a school do NOT gain RA jobs.</p>
<p>If you are able to be hired as an RA, great…but it is never to be considered a sure thing.</p>