<p>I know each college receives a certain amount of funding for work study. </p>
<p>Is work study ever over awarded? Does the financial aid office award it to people in the hopes they may not accept?</p>
<p>Do you mean will students be awarded work study as part of their FA and not have the chance to actually get that money? Then yes. You have to find a WS job to fill that void and sometimes they are hard to come by. And some people don’t accept but many do.</p>
<p>I don’t know if any college “overbooks” work study, but the pickings can be awfully meager. My SiL’s niece is an intrepid young woman and found zilch to us her award when she first arrived at her school, and found outside work instead. It wasn’t that there was nothing, but there wasn’t anything that she could fit with her schedule. You just get the dollar amount that you can earn, and then you have to find the job that will work with your schedule and that dollar amount. She had a $2K allotment, and wanted to make more than that in the year anyways, which she did.</p>
<p>Interestingly enough, she did find a WS job later in the year, just by chance that worked out very well for her.</p>
<p>Btw how does it work, they deduct money from my tuition or can i also get cash(for pocket money, thanks.</p>
<p>I was just curious. I know the jobs are hard to come by. I was shocked when my sister got offered a job. </p>
<p>You usually get a check for spend money. I am just speculating but at some colleges they may apply to it your account.</p>
<p>How it usually works is that if you have a work study award, you go to the Financial Aid office, usually, or where ever your school has the Work Study Job listings and look at what is available and whether you are available for any of the jobs on the list. It’s tough as a freshman to figure out what is the best pick many times because you don’t know how things work and are as well as the upperclassmen, and those returning students often have cherry picked the best jobs already. So you try to get a job from what is posted there, and you work, often times side by side with non Work Study kids. And you get paid pretty much as you would at any job, Your pay just happens to be funded with federal and college work study money. You only get paid as you work, just like most jobs, so depend on that amount sitting in your student account with the college. You usually get a check, and you can deposit it into your student account if you still owe money and are trying to bring the balance down, you can deposit it into your own bank account, or cash it as spending money. You can only earn up to the amount awarded through the program but some jobs at some college do allow a switch to private payroll if that happens. My niece went through her WS funds this year, petitioned to get more, did, but went through that as well, and went private at her WS when there were no more funds to be granted.</p>
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<p>Your paycheck is generally not 100% WS funds. They are often between 50-70% WS funds and the rest are non-WS funds. Therefore, it is often quite possible to earn more than your WS award but you need to check with your employer. </p>
<p>Fwiw, on my campus, everyone who wants a WS job can get one (caf if all else fails). </p>
<p>You get a check and are free to spend that money how you want.</p>
<p>Something that I have seen that confuses people is that when they see the award, some think the amounts will be deposited into the college financial account for the student, and that the student would then have to work off that amount. Nope. You do not get this money until after you find the job and work the hours,and then are payed by check. That can be a surprise to those getting the award and figuring what is going towards the university costs, and what they have to pay. Work study will not reduce your college bill directly though the student can put his check towards that account once he’s earned the money. But if payments are due at a certain date, you are not going to be able to hold off for the work study checks to go towards those balances, as a general rule.</p>
<p>I like to think of work study as spend and study. </p>
<p>It really only covers personal expenses. </p>
<p>You also need to be very careful because on some net price calculators they give a crazy amount for work study and it can make the school appear more affordable than it really is.</p>
<p>Well, you can take what you make first term and put it all in your student account to go towards second term expenses or if you go on a payment plan, towards future payments. The problem is that it is part of the financial aid package and most kid will still have their EFC that they and their parents have to cover, and instead of working to pay some of that, you are paying off a piece of your award. </p>
<p>My niece’s costs were paid by grandpa. He was not a happy camper of the amount of the bill and paid what was billed minus the award, which did include work study. So she and her parents were left with the books, sundiries, travel, supplies, to pay plus the $2K workstudy, which was owed to the school. It did cause somewhat of an issue, though it ended up being paid, along with the other expenses freshman year by other family members who gifted this lovely young lady. And she did bank a goodly amount of all of her earnings during the school year, as she has and will her summer earnings, so that her parents do not have to pay anything as they are strapped right now. Like literally not a cent to pay for anything and really going deeper in a whole each day.</p>