The College-Work Study Program: What’s it About?

Rachel Hanson, Contributing Writer

Updated: 3/18/2010

One of the many forms of financial aid available to college students is that of federal work-study programs. Formally called college work-study, the program is part of a student’s college financial aid package. Once a student (and their parents) fills out the FAFSA form, their financial aid profile will be created. Within this profile, students may receive financial aid in the form of federal loans, as well as funding through the federal work-study program.

Student loans will be part of your finances for decades to come, but work-study money is something that you earn each semester for hours worked during that semester. Some schools will apply your work-study earnings directly to your college loans for you; however, most colleges, and most students, choose for a bi-monthly or a monthly paycheck sent directly to the student’s personal account.

Anatomy of the System

Colleges that offer work-study programs receive money from the federal government to pay their work-study employees. Because the money is not coming from the degree-granting institution, the salary is often more closely linked to the federal minimum wage than it is linked to salaries in the geographical area of the school or the intellectual area of the job that one performs.

Work-Study Jobs

Colleges and universities have several different options for work-study jobs both on and off campus. Many jobs are the same regardless of which college or university you attend. For example, many jobs in dining halls, the campus bookstore, and the library exist at virtually every higher education institution. If none of these jobs sounds like an ideal one for you, you can look into special programs, such as tutoring, working at the Writing Center, or going out into public schools in the region to work with kids on a small group basis.

Each of these types of jobs has its advantages and disadvantages. Working at a check-out desk in the library may be boring at times; however, you’ll probably get the chance to get a fair amount of your homework done. While the salary may be on the low side, the demands of the job are usually commensurate with the salary. On campus jobs also have the added advantage of requiring little to no commuting time.

Work-Study Earnings

While work-study is a great program to earn part of the cost of your college education, virtually no work-study program is going to get you through college debt-free. Work-study jobs usually pay somewhere between $6-$10 an hour (by law, every work-study job must be paid above minimum wage), with an average of 10 hours a week, and a maximum of 20 hours a week (during school semesters).

Doing the math, a minimum-paying job at 10 hours a week would earn you $840 in a 14-week semester. At the other end of the spectrum, a higher-paying job at 20 hours a week would earn you $2800 in a 14-week semester. However, not only do you have to find a high-paying work-study job that has a maximum number of hours available each week, but you also have to be able to handle working that many hours, and have been awarded a considerable amount of work-study money in your financial aid offer.

Your financial aid offer includes a maximum amount you can earn in a work-study position. While some high-paying jobs may be available, most students are not awarded a high enough annual amount to make it into a main route to paying for college. Most students earn more than enough to pay for gas, entertainment, food, and maybe part of the rent; being able to pay everything through a work-study salary is highly unlikely. One final benefit: work-study earnings are not counted in the next year’s calculation of eligibility for financial aid, i.e. work-study cannot raise your income into another bracket where you would be eligible for less, or no, work-study funding.

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