<p>My financial aid package for 2012-13 includes $3,000 in work study. I currently have a job so have an idea of how to manage my time, but I absolutely do not want to start college with a job right off the bat. I'd like to spend my first semester getting used to college as a whole, figuring out what I need to do to balance classes (I've never had to study in my life and I know that won't fly in college, at least for long anyways), meeting people, and just getting involved. So ideally, I'd get a job in the spring semester, but I presume that all work-study jobs are yearlong and will be taken up by the time spring rolls around. Is this the case or is there a way to get around it?</p>
<p>Also, how does it work with the $3,000 cap? Do I just stop working once I hit $3,000 and let someone else who needs work study have the job... or?</p>
<p>The problem is that if you don’t accept/get a work-study job at the beginning, you may never get offered it again. W-S is limited and schools tend to not offer it again to students who don’t accept.</p>
<p>I can understand your concerns about adjusting to college, but I think that your concern is overblown. You can still accept a W-S job in the fall, and request that you work minimum hours…like 6 hours per week or so. That will still leave you with plenty of time for studying, etc. Many work study jobs are not on weekends, so you’d still have weekends free and you’d have most of the school week free as well.</p>
<p>Also, check with the student employment web site (most schools have one) as there may be jobs that are spring only. I will say having two kids in WS at their colleges, that the employers are very flexible with working around the student’s schedule and you can usually find jobs that are anywhere from 2-10 hours a week. </p>
<p>Lastly, to answer your question about the WS maximum, the government pays a portion of the wages under WS. If you go beyond that, the remainder is paid by the school entirely and treated as a regular job as far as FASA is concerned (i.e. you wouldn’t report the overage on the line about work study). It’s not a big deal as each student has a $6K income protection allowance. It wouldn’t affect your EFC unless you were putting it all in a savings/checking account and not spending it as 20% of that goes towards your EFC for the next year. Both my kids worked over their WS amounts. The jobs are great for them as they use the money to pay for books and personal expenses throughout the year.</p>
<p>One of the possible benefits of WS jobs is that you are getting paid more than what that job usually pays to a non-WS student. 18 years ago I was making copies for a law school for $10 per hour (minimum wage around $4.75 back then). Non-WS student would have been paid $6.50 per hour. I had no experience (other than working at Taco Bell) and I was able to work couple of hours in the morning before classes. </p>
<p>Working 10 hours a week with flexible schedule is not that big of a deal. I was an engineering major and the classes were hard, but scheduling work in between classes helped to manage time.</p>
<p>lerkin, I would think that depends on the school. My daughter only makes $8/hour at her IS public. My son, on the other hand, makes quite a bit more at his private. To me, the best advantage to WS is how the employer will work around your schedule instead of the other way around. My son’s employer explicitly said school comes first and he can even call the day he is supposed to work and let them know he can’t make it if he needs the time to study for something (he tries not to do that too often though). He can usually just work a few extra hours a different day to make up his work.</p>
<p>As a first gen student my oldest also worried about the transition to college, compounded by attending one of the most intense schools in the country.
However, work-study was part of her financial aid package for a reason, she needed the money to cover books & personal expenses.</p>
<p>Her job freshman year was only 10 hours a week, but as it was tutoring high school students in math off campus & she didn’t have a car, it took a few more hours than that.
It worked out OK for her freshman year, but the next year she did decide to take a job on campus.</p>
<p>I agree 10 hours a week is a relatively small slice of your time that won’t negatively impact your ability to perform in your classes or participate in campus activities. It also will give you an opportunity to be involved in a part of campus life that you wouldn’t otherwise see.</p>
<p>that is why I said “possible benefit”. My sister, at the same school, but different job, was making around $6 per hour - the same as non-WS students. </p>
<p>Flexibility is the greatest benefit of on-campus jobs. Not all on-campus jobs provide flexibility, but many do.</p>