The work-study program gives students a great opportunity to gain job experience and, more importantly, money!

Here’s how a work-study grant works: The federal government awards you, the student, a certain amount of money. If you find a work-study job at school, this grant money goes towards your employer, refunding them for 70% of your wages. Once the money in the grant is used up, the employer has to go back to paying 100% of your wages, but you’ll see no difference in your paycheck. You still get to keep the original hourly rate, and the employer gets a good deal for hiring you. You can reapply for a work-study grant each year, and the amount of the grant may vary.

Here are a few more facts and benefits of the work-study program:

1. Finding a work-study job is easy. For freshmen, the summer job fair is a great opportunity to secure a job before the school year even starts. You can also look for jobs at any time through the student link once you’ve created a BU account. There are also plenty of tutoring jobs and community service opportunities available.

2. Work-study students get preferential hiring! Since BU only has to pay 30% of work-study wages, it looks to work-study students first when looking for new positions to fill.

3. Although you must reapply for a work-study grant, BU automatically re-hires work-study students. That means that students hired under work-study as freshmen have the opportunity to continue working through that same department through the next 4 years.

4. Work-study wages and hours vary depending on where you work. But if you return to work in the same department, you earn a “merit increase” of 15 cents each academic semester, 10 cents for part-time summer employment, and 20 cents for full-time summer employment. And because work-study student are automatically rehired, these merit increases really add up.

5. Getting paid is easy, too. Under the “Work” tab on the student link, go to “Employee Time Entry”, fill in your hours, and submit them to your supervisor to be approved. You can then either pick up your check or set up a direct deposit account to have that money sent directly to your bank account.

For more information about BU’s work-study program, click here. Freshmen, click here too.
For all the work-study paperwork, click here.

Good luck!

new@bu, saving money, work study New @ BU