<p>Earlier this month I received my financial aid award... I am low income and I checked the work study while filling out the FAFSA. However, work study was not included in my letter. Does this mean I can't have work study? Or should I email them and ask if it was a mistake? Thanks anyone that can offer some advice!</p>
<p>Are your financial aid and your EFC = COA? If student loans are in your financial aid, you could ask for work study to replace some of loans.</p>
<p>You can ask. However, it is possible that they are out of WS funds. Federal WS has limited funding and school’s have more students that qualify than they have funds. Always worth asking though.</p>
<p>How much do you and your family have to pay out of pocket to get you through the school year? What is your FAFSA EFC? You can ask, if you are paying more than that EFC, if you can get some work study? You cannot get federal funds until you pay your FAFSA EFC. </p>
<p>Also, sometimes schools do have some work study funds available for other students looking for jobs and non workstudy funded jobs listed, so check that out Also, if you are already at the max aid you can get, you can most likely find a job on campus that is non WS and put that towards your EFC instead of towards your need. I have mixed feelings about WS, in that it prevents kids from doing that as your hours are used towards the school’s need package instead of towards what you have to pay. So you might be better off this way.</p>
<p>Talk to the financial aid office to see if they have overlooked something… Make sure the workstudy preference is correct on your FAFSA submission too. When did you submit your FAFSA?</p>
<p>The school’s coa is $62,000. I have to pay $2,700 out of pocket and was offered $12,000 in loans. I submitted my CSS and fafsa in February</p>
<p>Work study has limited funding. It is awarded on a first come, first served basis to applicants for need based aid. It is possible that the school ran out of WS funds prior to packaging your award.</p>
<p>But call them and ask. Sometimes WS funds free up in that enough students don’t accept that they have some. </p>
<p>$12,000 in loans? What are they? $5500 in Direct Loans, a Perkins Loan? What else? Those don’t usually equal $12,000 for the year.</p>
<p>Another question to ask is if there are on campus jobs you can that are not work study funded. </p>
<p>$2700 sounds like it could also be your student contribution. Do you have a job now, and for the summer?</p>
<p>Two government loans and a private loan from the college are the 12,000. I will have two jobs this summer before I go to college. Either way I plan on getting a job once I’m there</p>
<p>You may be better off without work study. If Wake gave you work study instead of their private loan from their own stash (You are referring to that? Not some cosigned loan you are getting on your own?) Then you would still have to come up with $2700 and not any wiggle room to pay that out of your working during the school year, as the WS would go towards your aid package, not your $2700. This way , you can pay the $2700 out of summer earnings, and then find a job at the school to pay for your expenses. Make sure you understand what you will have to pay that first term and what you have to buy and pay to get there. </p>
<p>Sorry to hijack the thread. I had some questions about WS earlier in the month and asked about it here on CC. The info that I was given here on CC about WS was this…</p>
<p>WS is for the student to spend on life’s necessities(sp?). But from the looks of the advice on this thread, it needs to be used for the students contribution. </p>
<p>Work study is part of a financial aid package most of the time, and if the federal funds are used, it can only be given AFTER FAFSA EFC is fullfilled. With schools like WF, one has two things going on in terms of need, what the school considers the family and student has to contribute and also what the federal government requires with the FAFSA EFC. If the FAFSA EFC is $2700, for example, in this case, the school cannot give federal workstudy as part of the package, because that is what HAS to be paid before the student can get penny one of ANY federal money including subsidized loans and work study. </p>
<p>If the student has a zero EFC, yes, it is possible, under Federal rules to give him, say $2700 in work study funds, in this particular case, but the school might have it’s own rules regarding this and firmly say that the student has to come up with that money outside of ANY aid package, through summer work or outside jobs during the school year, or parents have to come up with the money. </p>
<p>Work study is part of the financial aid package. But is is paid like a regular job. That can be a problem when a student is expecting that money to be sitting there in the school account. It isn’t. It isn’t even guaranteed. Kid has to find the job off the Work Study list at the college, and hope there is a fit with the kid’s schedule and award and logistics. Then kid has to work the hours and get paid just like a regular job. </p>
<p>Some colleges will award work study to very low income students to help them fulfill their student contribution. </p>
<p>OP…what “private” loans are you talking about. Do you mean Parent Plus loans?</p>
<p>Its a private loan through the college. I have enough in my college savings to cover the 2700 but I am planning on using mostly my summer earning to pay for it.</p>
<p>I hope you earn enough over the summer to pay for it. Be aware when you complete the FAFSA and PROFILE next year that ANY assets YOU report will be hit up at least 20% with no allowance. So what I suggest you do, is to put any excess financial aid money into an account and use up your own savings. The reason for that is that you don’t have to include the proceeds of any financial aid including loans. You do need to have a ready paper trail to prove that the money indeed is part of such proceeds. It’s a pain in the neck but can be worth it to do things that way. as your EFC starts out with 20 cents on every dollar you have stashed with NO allowance as as student on the day you file the fin aid forms.</p>
<p>The FA officer at UMich came to my D’s school (and other schools in the area) every year to talk about FA. He said one should check the box for Work Study even you are not sure you will need it. If you don’t check that box, you won’t have the option. If you check that box, you can decide later on. Also, he said do not count on the work study money. It is not in your account until you find the work study and earn for it.</p>
<p>@NewHavenCTmom schools typically expect students to contribute in 3 ways: 1) a cash payment from savings and/or summer earnings (in the OP’s case $2700), 2) loans, 3) earnings during the school year (w/s or just a regular job)</p>
<p>That’s to cover the entire EFC which includes direct-billed expenses: tuition, fees, room & board for those living on campus, and other expenses: books, travel, day-to-day expenses</p>
<p>Typically what the student is expected to earn comes out to about the same amount as the non-billed expenses, so it makes sense to allocate the earnings toward paying those expenses, except that the timing is off because the student will need to pay for books and travel to school and some early expenses before they ever get a pay check from a w/s job, even if they get the job as soon as they arrive. So a student needs some seed money to get started. If they have to use their summer earnings to cover billed expenses, it can be hard to cover the others. And work study plus loans plus other aid cannot exceed FAFSA-computed need. </p>
<p>So for a student’s first year, it can be easier to have $12K in loans than $10K in loans and $2K in w/s because they $12K all comes in to pay direct expenses, and then the student can use their savings to cover the indirect. </p>
<p>Where awards can really cause an issue when there is a huge gap between what the family can pay and the EFC. In such cases, even if a school meets the full need, if there are loans, including those student Direct Loans and lots of workstudy, the student cannot help out with the EFC with those student loans or by working during the year as that is already tied up and that money is going towards the need based package. The only source of money would be if there are savings (student/ parent), parent can come up with money by stinting and saving that year out of take home pay, that the student start working NOW and through the summer, and if parent takes out some sort of loan. </p>