Work Study can be a part of a students Financial Aid package.
It is not a loan, it is not a grant… it’s Work
(finally the kid will do some real work).

It will not pay off tuition.

Some families mistakenly think…
“My child is working 20 hours a week and we’ll use
that money to pay off tuition”.

WRONG!

It doesn’t work that way. The way it works is that the student
works day-to-day to assist them with their daily living expenses.

They can certainly save the money for tuition or books or whatever
they want. But in reality, the money most often is used to buy meals,
transportation and other things teenagers deem important.

Colleges issue work study based on need.

The job your child gets will be on-campus.
It could be filing, mailing, answering phones, working in the library
or an office on the computer… whatever needs to be done.

There is a list available which lists all the different positions.
The positions are filled on a first come - first serve basis.
An interview will probably be required.

It’s important to have the student fill out an application for the
job they want as early as possible because the best jobs
are taken up pretty quickly.

The pay rate varies from school to school but they will not be getting
less than the minimum wage (which as of this writing is $5.15 per hour -
soon to be increased to $7.25 per hour)

At my daughters college (St John’s University) she gets paid $7.60 per hour
for work study. Other work study positions pay about $8.00 per hour.
This Work Study becomes part of your financial aid package.

WARNING

When you get your financial aid packages from different schools,
be careful that work study is not some astronomical figure like a
$17,000 work study award - because, as mentioned previously, you can’t use it.

The child has to work for the money and will get paid weekly or biweekly so
the money will not be available at the time you have to pay your tuition bill.

What you will most likely see however, are awards in the $2,500 range….
$3,000 or $4,000. The student can work maybe 12 - 20 hours per week
for 9 months and get a weekly paycheck which more than likely will be used
for daily living expenses - transporation, meals, whatever they want.

So when you compare financial aid packages from different schools,
you really have to look at what is gift money - schlorships, grants
compared to what your tuition is.

Work Study is a great benefit to students.
As a Freshman it gets them involved with campus activities and
gets them familiar with their surroundings.

But don’t fool yourself into thinking this will be used to pay tuition.
The student has to earn the money. And if they don’t work enough hours
to max out the award, they don’t get the difference.

They only get paid for the actual hours worked, not the maximum amount
of the award. For example, if they are awarded $4,000 work study
but only work enough hours to earn $3,800, that’s all they get.

Work Study is a fantastic way to help a student mature and
start taking responsbility for their own financial lives.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 15th, 2007 at 12:41 am and is filed under Student Loans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.