"The goal of no-loans financial aid is to help students, especially those from low incomes, reduce their borrowing, experts say. Harvard University, Amherst College and Pomona College have something in common: No loans in financial aid packages.
These institutions are among a handful of schools that package financial aid awards with grants instead of federal student loans. While more than 50 institutions offer a no-loans policy to families from low-income backgrounds, a small number – 16 schools – extend the policy to all of their students.
A no-loans policy replaces federal student loans with grants that the university pays." …
ahh if our children could just get into these schools :)… They didn’t mention University of Chicago and Northwestern have both taken on the No-Loans principle
So does a significant part of the no-loan aid for these students come from work study at these schools?
Work study is not available up front and has to be earned by working a job, but is the student guaranteed to be able to work the necessary hours to earn their maximum award?
My D was at a no-loan school (Vanderbilt). Their aid packaging was excellent. Different schools have different policies for packaging (as well as for determining need).
And no, work study does not come with any guarantees at any school (that I am aware of).
Work study effectively means that some on-campus jobs will hire the student over a student without work study (it works by subsidizing the student’s pay when the employer hires the work study student). This does not guarantee that the work study student will get a job, but gives him/her an advantage over other students in getting a job.
However, some work study jobs may limit the number of hours worked, if the on-campus employer does not want or need more work than it can get a subsidy form. A work study student also has the option of finding work and earning money in non subsidized jobs, but would not have an automatic preference at such an employer.
Some schools are notorious for having a limited number of work-study options, often with restrictive hours that conflict with the EC activities, etc. that drew the student to the school to begin with. Other schools have lots of work-study jobs that are never filled.
The thing is, schools have to over-award FWS to students. Many who receive it will not look for or work in a FWS job … the school has no clue how many that might be. They don’t want to under-spend their FWS allocation, because they will have to pay it back to the government (and receive less in the future, as a result). They don’t want to give it to too few students, because they want the positions to be filled … not every student is suited for every job or can work at the time the job needs him/her.
There’s one more facet to this that hasn’t been mentioned. Students still have the option to take the Direct loans to meet their EFC at no-loan schools. This can really help bridge a gap between EFC and actual ability to pay it. Hopefully they don’t need it all, but it’s there.
My D, at Stanford, received a fantastic needs based aid award that actually meets our need without loans. However, she decided to take a loan so she would be able to take additional courses in the summer - allowing her to double major. She would otherwise not be able to meet the student contribution without working over the summer, so the no loans policy provided her with additional options. Many of her friends are in a similar situation - or are taking the summer to study abroad, etc. Students lucky enough to be accepted to these no-loans schools are smart kids who will take advantage of the tremendous options available to them