Schools' responsibilities re work study awards

[sybbie719]

I am reading the MHC and I have issues with the article from the very beginning

When I enrolled at Mount Holyoke last spring, my financial aid package indicated that I would be making an estimated $2400 throughout the academic year. According to the Office of Financial Services, students on work study are expected to contribute between $1,500 and $3,000. Before the Massachusetts minimum wage rose to $11 an hour, that meant that students on work study needed to work between 5 to 10 hours a week, depending on their aid package.

actually, students are probably expected to contribute $1500 - $3000 from work, which includes summer earnings. I have seen many financial aid packages including MHC (as my own kid was accepted to MHC), and the $1500-3000 student contribution is from work. a student making ~75/week will probably get about 2k at the end of the school year (based on 2-15 week semesters)

IMO there should never an expectation that w/s should be used to pay your billed cost to attend school. a student on average is making about $100 per paycheck every 2 weeks , which is supposed to be used for incidentals.

However, from most of the post that we even see here on CC, it looks as if families are dependent on using w/s to pay for their billed costs, when w/s was designed to fulfill the incidental costs and pocket money.

@Chloe Jensen

This is especially true among first year students in the dining halls, who typically don’t get more than one 3 hour shift per week. **At the beginning of every semester, work study students attend a meeting according to their dining hall location, and are assigned shifts on a first-come, first-served basis. This means that everyone lines up, signs up for one shift and then goes to the back of the line to sign up for other shifts. **However, by the end of the first round of shift claiming, most of the shifts are gone, leaving many students with only a single shift. Although there are usually a few shifts left by the time students sign up for a second round, many of them are short lunch shifts that do not work with their schedules.

http://www.mountholyokenews.com/oped/2017/2/9/lack-of-opportunities-in-mhcs-student-work-study-program-causes-financial-strain

I think a challenge may be that Chloe and others may have a lack of understanding about w/s at her school, needs to read what her own school is saying about work study

@MHC

Any currently enrolled Mount Holyoke College student is eligible to work on campus.* Level 1 jobs are only available to students with work-study. Students with or without work-study may pursue Level 2-4 jobs.

First-year students with work-study must fill at least one shift in Dining Services during the fall and spring semesters. After signing-up for a shift, first-year students with work-study may seek additional employment in other departments.

https://www.mtholyoke.edu/sfs/resources/student_employment

It seems on face as long as you sign up for a shift at dining services, you can pursue additional jobs So a student who is getting a 3 hour shift in the dining hall and fulfills the requirement, can get an administrative/office other sort of on-campus position to fulfill this requirement.

It does not read that there is an expectation that freshman students should fulfill their work study obligations by working in the dining hall. However, it is a condition to doing that you fulfill this requirement before being able to do any other kind of w/s job.

So, a student who signs up for a 3 hours shift can and should be pursing other opportunities on campus that are open to designated work study students (level 1) or level 2-5 positions. It seems that level 1 students are specifically geared for students who have w/s in their FA package, while level 2-5 positions are open to any student on campus who applies. Student will still have to apply interview and have the skills that the job calls for. This can put students with no work experience at a disadvantage of getting some of the jobs.

some of the jobs available now:

community fellow

https://seojobs.mtholyoke.edu/jobxJobdetailPrint.aspx?JobId=3491&win=True

financial peer mentor
https://seojobs.mtholyoke.edu/jobxJobdetailPrint.aspx?JobId=4353&win=True

chem tutor

https://seojobs.mtholyoke.edu/jobxJobdetailPrint.aspx?JobId=982&win=True

retail associate

https://seojobs.mtholyoke.edu/jobxJobdetailPrint.aspx?JobId=4616&win=True

sga bookkeeper

https://seojobs.mtholyoke.edu/jobxJobdetailPrint.aspx?JobId=4616&win=True

TA biochemistry

https://seojobs.mtholyoke.edu/jobxJobdetailPrint.aspx?JobId=964&win=True

web assistant

https://seojobs.mtholyoke.edu/jobxJobdetailPrint.aspx?JobId=4625&win=True

[romanigypsyeyes]

Sorry, unrelated, but from that page:

Student’s are packaged with an average of $2,400 per academic year, an amount that represents approximately seven hours of work per week while classes are in session.

Oh come on! Now this stupid, incorrect use of an apostrophe is infiltrating into college websites? Boo!

Carry on. I don’t even remember what I went to that page to look at now.

[PNWedwonk]

@sybbie719 I agree (obviously since it is written there) that these first years could be signing up for other WS jobs once they signed up for Dining Hall shifts in both semesters. The article implies that either these young women can’t get other WS jobs,or they are really not very intelligent and are leaving other jobs hanging there on the student employment page. I’m inclined to believe that other positions don’t exist (I don’t know many people who would prefer to troll the Dining Hall sub list for random hours over getting a job shelving library books.) As someone who really needed the money I earned as an RA and TA, the attitude here that, well you shouldn’t actually count on Work Study for anything other than beer money (and the school has absolutely no responsibility in balancing their awards with the hours offered) is really interesting to me.

[sybbie719]

I was a dirt poor work study student in college, when the dinosaurs roamed the earth and Pell was BEOG, who dutifully worked my 2 hours a day work study job at the library, psychology department and various other places. It is one thing to save your work study money toward books next term, a bus ticket home, or carfare if you are a commuter student but I think that it is unrealistic that if you have are short a couple of thousand dollars in your direct billing that you are going to and depend on filling that gap in $100 increments every two weeks. At my house, if my D want to join a sorority, go to the formal and other social stuff, she had to make sure that she worked during the summer and and get a work study job (it was my responsibility has her parent to work how the direct bills to the school were going to be affordable in our house).

What the prevailing advice is on CC when families are breaking down their financial aid packaging, to totally back out the work study and not think of it as a resource for paying your college bill (because you have to first find a job, work the job and get paid). Even if you are on a payment plan, then the student needs to find out from the school, if they will take their work study payment. That is a precarious position to be in as what happens during midterms/finals where you may decide to work fewer or no hours that week due to exams?

If families cannot work our paying the bill to the school without being dependent on work study, funds, that perhaps they may need to rethink how they are going to finance that school. To be dependent on a $100 paycheck every two weeks in order to stay in school is too stressful

[twoinanddone]

I still don’t understand why schools don’t have enough hours of w/s jobs to match the grant they are getting from the federal government. It’s never going to be an exact match, but if the government gives MHC $500k in work study funds, shouldn’t MHC offer $500k to its students, and then have $500k worth of jobs available? It would be a wash for MHC and a benefit to its students. Why not have more students shelving books, more students wiping off tables, more students helping a professor with research? Why not pay students more? It doesn’t cost the school anything!

I agree that the w/s award should be separate on the award letter so that people don’t assume it is a guaranteed amount.

[1or2Musicians]

That system sounds very flawed. When I was in collge (late 80’s) I was on work study. For the most part, first year students were in the dining halls. The nice thing was that the dining halls paid a bit more per hour so you could make more money in less time. Partly for that reason, I stayed in the dining halls until midway through junior year. I NEVER had only one shift a week. Usually 2-3 weekday shifts, and every other weekend you’d have a shift or two.

And yeah, we were sometimes totally overstaffed in the dining hall. Because it didn’t really cost the school anything to pay the kids on work study to be there.

[thumper1]

In my opinion, the work study money should not be make it or break it in terms of finances in college now. A $3000 WS award at MHC is a small %age of the cost of attendance. Back in the Stone Age…at a public university, my WS wages could actually pay most of my tuition costs. Now…and especially at a private university…that is just not the case.

But more important…if it IS the case for some student…that student should be,aggressive in looking for those substitute hours in the dining hall. And rheynshould have a summer and vacationnjob as well.

As an example…my kid worked in the call center for one term. She was dependable, took whatever hours she could get (and wasn’t particularly picky…would work weekend evenings while friends went out…or Saturday mornings while others were sleeping in). At the end of that term, she applied for a highly sought after job on her campus…and her supervisor at the call center wrote her letter of reference. She got that excellent job!

All college students have personal expenses…shampoo, toothpaste, haircuts, clothing, the occasional pizza with friends, transportation home. Who would pay for these things for a WS student who was using all of their earnings to pay tuition/room/board? That money has to come from somewhere…and personal expenses can be reduced if enough money hasn’t been earned.

To,the OP…are these other parents saying their kids don’t have enough money to pay their college bill without the WS earnings?

[sybbie719]

There are usually different jobs for work study and federal work study. I think a lot depends on if a student has work study as part of their package. Only federal work study jobs are subsidized. FOr all we know.those could be the library shelving books jobs. You have to be a student and log in to see all of their available jobs

For all we know students with federal work study are getting jobs because they are earmarked and funded. The challenge may be general work study jobs that may be tied to budget constraints or may require a skill set that some students may not have.

Based on the article , it does not seem as Chloe was eligible for federal work study and to get a job that was earmarked for federal work study.

Sorry but I can’t muster up a lot of sympathy for the student who says it is hard to fulfill their work study commitment during golf season

[twoinanddone]

The article said it was about federal work study.

[bschooltotech]

Many schools do not clearly differentiate between federally funded and institutionally funded work study. If you do some quick math as follows, you will see that there is no way MoHo is fully funding WS with federal dollars and as such it is a financial aid/enrollment tool and the school has no responsibility to ensure students find jobs.

2,189 total students (from college website)
1,247 Receive need based self help (57%) (from USNWR)
$2,400 Average WS award (from college website)
$2,994,552 Total work study likely awarded in financial aid packages

$314,157 FWS funds received from DOE in 2016-2017 (from NASFAA)

Mount Holyoke is likely awarding 10 times as much WS as funding they receive. So they ration can it but guarantee jobs which would mean either only 174 students receive WS or the average award is only $335. Alternatively, they can do what they did (and a lot of other top tier schools do) and give everyone an opportunity to work in campus in a competitive job market. Which by the way sounds a lot like the real world.

Many schools are having difficult conversations around work study but you have to start from the place that this isn’t really the government’s money. We can have more student jobs but that would mean cuts elsewhere in the college’s budget. It is largely not just a case of non “work study” students taking “work study” jobs.

P.S. just to be clear I don’t work at MoHo.

[twoinanddone]

No, need based self help isn’t just WS. It can be student loans.

The women in the article might be confusing MHC workstudy with federal, but they did say federal.

D visited Smith College and stayed with a friend. Friend did get a lot of FA and she had dining hall duties assigned. I don’t think it was federal WS, but some kind of school work program. It was very flexible and she could swap out with other kids, which she did several times over the weekend or the house kitchen staff just let her go early. She did not live in one of the big dorms but in a smaller house, maybe with 50 other students?

[bschooltotech]

It “can” be. But given the way they are award it is a pretty safe assumption that well over 90% of students that receive need based self help receive work study as part of the that self help aid. I know they said “federal” in the article and I imagine it probably says “federal” on their award letter. My point was that just because it is called “federal” does not mean it is actually being funded by the federal government.

[PNWedwonk]

@thumper1 If you read the linked article, the author says:

Students who qualify for work study use every dime of their checks to pay for their monthly tuition bills or any extra necessities. Every two weeks, my mother takes my work study money to pay my bill. Bostick says that she “saved every cent from the one shift [she] worked fall semester” to pay her spring semester bill. Martin and Gale used their work study money for travel costs, toiletries and necessary clothes.

@bschooltotech Thanks for that try at analyzing the situation. That is exactly what I am getting at, do schools have some obligation to let WS awardees know how likely it is that they will actually be able to earn those hours? It seems to me that they have the numbers available even if we don’t. Obviously, it is a kind of buyer beware situation, but these young women generally have reputations as scrappy hard workers. Without the numbers in hand, I can imagine they would assume that they have an opportunity to earn their full “award.” If the availability of WS hours varies significantly from school to school, it seems like that should be part of the way we judge how generous schools are.

[sybbie719]

@PNWedwonk

Students who qualify for work study use every dime of their checks to pay for their monthly tuition bills or any extra necessities. Every two weeks, my mother takes my work study money to pay my bill. Bostick says that she “saved every cent from the one shift [she] worked fall semester” to pay her spring semester bill.

While I feel for Bostick and her situation, if this is the case, Bostick is slicing stuff way to thin if she is dependent on w/s money make her tuition payment to continue at school. Work study was not designed to pay her tuition cost. The concept behind work study was so student could have pocket monies for incidentals. What happens in subsequent years when the cost of attendance increases and w/s is not increasing at the same rate?

[twoinanddone]

The concept behind work study was so student could have pocket monies for incidentals.

I think that is what it has become, but I don’t think that is what it was designed to do. I had a job in the school library, and I used that money for everything except tuition. I paid for all my food and utilities. I paid my rent if I had the money (if not, parents would help). If I didn’t work, I didn’t eat.

[thumper1]

@twoinanddone certainly when I went to college in the Stone Age, it was very possible to use WS money to actually pay for college. BUT at MHC, it’s just NOT possible to do so…even with a $3000 earned amount.

[twoinanddone]

But at MHC, the student may also have received a big award for tuition and r&b, but not quite enough to cover it all. I don’t think it is unreasonable for a family to get an award that requires $3000 in self help (even more if the school expects loans to be taken) and for the family to see $3000 in work study and think “well there it is, we’ll use that $3000 to pay the rest of the billed amount.” They then find out that that $3000 just won’t be there (although I do think that if the student was motivated, she could go to FA, explain that she really needs to earn the money, and they’d direct her to a professor or have her working the tours or gardening, etc. I think some of the article focused on kids complaining and not those who fixed the problem by going to the FA office.)

Many families do not anticipate that the student may need $3000 to pay for incidentals, and in fact I don’t expect my kids to spend that much on entertainment and activities and books if they make that much. I was rather upset with my daughter who didn’t find a work study job last semester. No, the $1500 would not have paid tuition, but it would have paid her final r&b bill (divided into thirds), or her deposit for her spring semester abroad, not just for coffees and movies. As it was, she got no coffees and movies.

[sybbie719]

MHC is a school that meets 100% demonstrated need. The way financial aid is packaged, w/s is not intended to make tuition payments because it is unrealistic. The family is choosing that this is what they are going to do with the work study money instead of coming up with a way to make the bill.

On average if you are making $100/wk (10 hrs @ $10/hr), that is a good work study amount at schools that pay a minimum wage of $10/hr or are flush enough that they can pay students $10/hr.

If the 3K was part of the student contribution , it was part of summer earnings. If the student did not earn the 3k, the school is not going to make up the difference. If the 3k was part of the EFC that the parent could not afford, there really needed to be a plan in place on how they were going to meet the gap not only for this year, but for the next 3 years.

[alooknac]

I think a mountain is being made out of a molehill. The biggest takeaway, in my opinion, is colleges need to explain work-study better.

The writer of the Op Ed piece actually had TWO work study jobs yet she still complains.

All the complaints about standing in line for dining hall jobs and not getting enough shifts? MHC students only have to take ONE three hour dining hall shift and then they are free to apply for other jobs. This is not even addressed in the Op Ed piece, but it’s right there on MHC’s website.

MHC says it provides 1,000 “job opportunities” for its 2,189 students. It says 70% of students work. The LOWEST wage is $11/hour and the average award is $2400.

Regardless of what people are actually using their earnings for, MHC expects students to use it “for books and personal expenses.” There is no detriment to FinAid if a student does not accept or use their work study and they can possibly convert it to a loan if desired.

Federal work study at any college can be performed off campus in community service positions. In fact colleges are required to use a percentage of their funds that way. All colleges routinely award more work study “funds” than there are hours of work on campus. They need/want to use all their allocated government funds and they know not everyone will choose to work or reach their max, for a variety of reasons.

This was quite a discussion based on second and third hand information. There may well be students who, despite good efforts, cannot reach the max of their work-study award. There can be many hindrances including not just scarcity of jobs but also mismatches of skills and schedules. It’s a pretty inexact process.

Looking at MHC’s website, they appear to be doing their best. If they are lying through their teeth they should be taken to task. But I haven’t seen the evidence so far. If students want facts and figures about employment and work study awards, I think that’s fair. Has anyone actually approached the administration? Or just grumbled??

[PNWedwonk]

Does “need” include an allowance for incidentals, travel etc.at most schools? If it does and MHC includes WS in how they meet 100% of need it seems like they should pay more attention to whether it is possible to earn that money. Incidentals cost something, and I’m not talking beer here. In a small rural town for a first year without a car, WS can be their only option.

I do agree with @twoinanddone who said:

I do think that if the student was motivated, she could go to FA, explain that she really needs to earn the money, and they’d direct her to a professor or have her working the tours or gardening, etc.

Although, to be honest, I hate situations where the person who has enough ego to go to someone in authority and make demands gets what they need and people who were raised to believe that “you get what you get” don’t.

I am surprised that no one from the college has commented on the article. I also think the author should have interviewed people in Financial Aid and the Employment office and not just her peers. Maybe she will do a follow up.

@alooknac If you are talking about me (or even the students) I don’t think anyone thinks this is a mountain. I do think it is an issue that families should consider (and ask a school about) before they count on WS funds. As I said above, my D didn’t qualify for WS, so we didn’t count on it. My S, at a different school, did, and I did expect him to earn that amount to put towards his incidentals. It never occurred to me that he could try his hardest to get a job and not be able to find one. WS students go to the head of the line before the others (as they should.) It sounds like at some schools they can count on getting enough hours to pay for incidentals and at other schools the award has less value.

The site (as you quote) says there are about 1000 positions on campus and that 70% work, but If 70% want to work, that would require there to be 1579 positions on campus. So, by that measure, they would be short of positions by about 30%. (And, yes, I know they may or may not be measuring “positions” by year and “want to work” by semester but that’s what we have to work with.)

As far as this being second and third hand info, I asked in my OP for people to share their first hand experience. Thank you to those who have.