Work-Study Guidelines

Work-study is a federally funded program that pays a portion or all of a student’s wage, depending on the position and type of work-study award. The 3 types of work-study our students are awarded include: Traditional, Community Service, and America Reads.

Key Points

  • Students may hold multiple campus jobs simultaneously. Thus, please remember to ask your student, at the time of hire, if they have another campus job using their FWS award. If so, you will need to take this into account when estimating how many hours the student can work in your department before their award is exhausted.
  • All hours worked beyond the award limit will automatically be charged 100% to the hiring department.
  • Undergraduate students, paid using work-study funding, MUST be compensated on an HOURLY basis.

FWS Award Look-up

The process to retrieve a student’s Federal Work Study (FWS) award information has changed, effective the fall semester, 2017.

If you hire a student who has an FWS award you must ask the student for their award information, which you will need for the ISR New Hire. Using MyJHU, the student will sign into SIS and select the appropriate academic year. Assuming the student has an FWS award, they will click on the Federal Work Study Authorization Form which they can save as a PDF to provide/email to their campus employer.

What is Non-Federal Work Study?

Students who do not receive a Federal Work Study award may have a line item on their aid package titled JHU Non-Federal Work Study along with a dollar amount. This is not an FWS award and can be confusing to students. The line item refers to money that a student can earn by working on campus through the Office of University Experiential Learning, in a non-work-study position where the department pays 100% of the student’s earnings. Thus, when you are hiring a student who claims to have an FWS Award, it is always best to check with our office to be certain. Also, please note that student employment is available to ALL full-time ASEN students and there is no limit to the amount a student may earn; the amount listed is only ‘suggested’ earnings.

Other Important Information