Federal Work-Study
The Federal Work-Study (FWS) program makes a positive difference for college students throughout the country. For the 2020 fiscal year, Congress has appropriated $1.2 billion to the FWS program to extend funding to nearly 600,000 students attending more than 3,000 institutions of higher education.
Unlike other types of financial aid, work-study earnings are not applied directly to student tuition and fees. Students who are awarded work-study receive the funds in a paycheck as they earn them, based on hours worked. Typically, FWS earnings are meant to help with a student’s daily expenses and not meant to cover large costs like tuition and on-campus housing.
The Federal Work-Study program has been successful in helping students persist to graduation. In fact, researchers at Columbia University have concluded that FWS participants are more likely to graduate and get a job after college than non-participants.
However, there is a bipartisan proposal in Congress to redistribute campus-based aid funding, including FWS, away from smaller institutions in favor of larger institutions. NAICU has argued that existing FWS recipients should be held harmless and continue to receive their current allocations, while additional funding should not be distributed based on the size of the institution but rather the proportion of Pell Grant recipients that it serves.