Lack of funding reduces Work-Study grants available to eligible students

By Amanda Phipps
phippsa@mytjnow.com

On-campus jobs, such as office assistants, computer lab monitors and library assistants are available to students participating in the Federal Work-Study program. Angel Carswell, junior psychology and sociology major, works part-time at Dacus library as part of her Work-Study employment. Photo by Aimee Harman • harmana@mytjnow.comFederal Work-Study Program funds will not be able to support all eligible students this year, Leah Sturgis, director of financial aid, said.

An increase in student population has increased the demand for funds from the Work-Study Program at Winthrop, Sturgis said.

More than 3,000 schools, including Winthrop, participate in the Work-Study program, she said.

Work-Study is a federal government program that provides funds to universities to help students pay for college through part-time student employment, according to the U.S. Department of Education’s website.

The U.S. Department of Education calculates the level of funding for each school, Sturgis said.

“(The funds are) contingent upon the total amount of federal funds appropriated for each campus-based program in the annual federal budget process,” she said. 

“Work-Study is considered campus-based funding, which means limited federal funding is provided to each school, and the school determines the manner in which it will award those funds.”

Since the amount of funding to support campus-based programs varies from year-to-year and school-to-school, the university’s financial aid office has to figure out each year how to award the funds equitably based on the amount of funding and the number of qualified applicants the school has, Sturgis said.  

If the same number of Pell Grant-eligible students enroll this academic year as last year, the amount required to provide just these students with an annual award of $1,200 in federal Work-Study funds would be $2.4 million, Sturgis said.

“Our average annual allocation from the federal government is less than 10 percent of that amount,” she said.

Winthrop has been allocated $220,000 per year in federal Work-Study funds over the past five years, Sturgis said.

Graphic by Courtney Niskala • niskalac@mytjnow.comWork-Study is available, not only to Pell-Grant recipients, but to all eligible students with ‘unmet financial need,’ she said.

“Even more federal Work-Study funding would be needed to award students who do not qualify for a Pell grant, but who are otherwise eligible for Work-Study funds,” Sturgis said. “(This is) at a time when Congress is reducing, not increasing, spending across the board.”

Since funding is limited, and due to the economy and growth in student population, Winthrop has had to reserve campus-based federal for the students in most need of it, she said.

The students who are eligible to receive Work-Study funds but haven’t this year have been put on a waiting list. Financial aid officials did not disclose how many students are on this list.

This has been a trend across the nation.

In 2003, 1,200 University of Minnesota students lost their Work-Study jobs due to budget cuts, according to The Minnesota Daily’s website.

In 2010, the number of Work-Study jobs decreased by 162,000 to 768,000, according to the U.S. News and World Report’s website.

Work-Study is only a small part of student employment at Winthrop, Sturgis said. She said Work-Study employment makes up 10 percent of the total student employment earnings each year. Most student employment is institutionally funded by the Winthrop employment office through the Winthrop budget.