<p>What's the difference in work study and finding a job on my own?</p>
<p>maybe there's some benefit with taxes? though i'm not entirely sure. ie. grad ta's get their tuition wiped, versus if they worked a job and made the amount of their tuition there would still be taxes on that so they would still have to get additional money to pay their tuition. undergrads - not entirely sure... :\ sorry this board doesn't have great advice for work study at least in the past.</p>
<p>I've asked this elsewhere myself. </p>
<p>Basically, the essential difference is that using all your work study doesn't affect your financial aid award. If you find a separate job and go past the federal threshold on income (this is not below 3000 dollars a year I think, and probably higher), 50% of that becomes part of your EFC.</p>
<p>But I'm getting paid 9.75 / hr for a non-work-study position, compared to 8.25 / hr for the best work-study position to be found for an average first-year. (More common ones are 7.00 / hr.) I don't think I'll ever break more than 3000 / year, so until the work-study hourly rate becomes much more significant (it's 15 dollars / hr for grad students), whether a job is work-study or not doesn't matter to me. Yet.</p>
<p>50% of the income past the $3000+/year threshold gets added to the EFC, I should clarify.</p>