Offices encouraged to hire work study students

Wage savings, other benefits abound

Given the budget cuts the university is facing, many offices have likely considered cutting student hours to deal with the financial shortfall. Some may not realize they can pay just 25 percent of a student’s wages and keep their scholarly employees.

Federal work study places students who demonstrate financial need in campus jobs. When campus offices hire part-time help, they are only required to pay 25 percent of these students' wages, and the work study program picks up the rest.

“Work study stretches our dollars. It really does,” said Brenda Maigaard, director of the Office of Student Financial Aid. “Utilizing available federal work study maximizes limited student hourly funds while also benefiting the student employees.”

The federal work study program is designed to help students financially and reduce their dependence on loans to pay for higher education. Last year, KU had more than 500 work study students, and 842 have applied and been deemed eligible for next year. Offices who want to hire work study students list the positions in the same manner as student hourly jobs. Human Resources and Equal Opportunity’s Web site has a tab in which employers can designate whether the position is work study, student hourly or a combination of both.

Nick Prewett, assistant director of the Office of Student Financial Aid, said payroll regulations for work study employees have been streamlined and made more user-friendly in the past several years. Prewett holds training sessions every September to assist departments in completing the requirements for paying students from a federal financial pool and from their own budgets.

Undergraduate, graduate, graduate research assistants and graduate teaching assistants are all eligible for work study. Under the work study structure, employers pay 25 percent of the wages, which equates to about $1.87 per hour for a student making the minimum wage of $7.50 per hour.

Employers get the benefit of student help at a reduced cost to the unit, and the students benefit from the program as well. Prewett said studies have shown that students who work 15 hours per week through the program do better academically than those who don’t work or work more than 15 hours. Plus, many receive the same training that full-time senior staff receive.

“These students are getting, real, on-the-job skills that they can use in their careers when they finish school,” Prewett said.

Work study is often more conducive to a student’s schedule as well because the jobs are located on campus and can accommodate class schedules. Students often start jobs as freshmen and stay for four years, developing a rapport with employers, which can in turn lead to job opportunities and references.

Students can take part in the work study program through the summer and don’t need to be enrolled but do need to visit with the Office of Student Financial Aid to determine how it will affect their aid for the following year.

For more information on work study, contact Prewett at prewettn@ku.edu or visit www.financialaid.ku.edu.