The university has lost over $1 million from the Federal Work-Study Program this year leading to a decrease of 946 awards in funds available for students this year.
Current funding for Georgetown’s Federal Work-Study Program has decreased from $4,545,282 for the 2009-2010 school year, to $3,345,308 for the 2010-2011 school year, according to the U.S. Department of Education’s Information for Financial Aid Professionals website. This constitutes a 26.4 percent drop in total federal work-study funding from the previous academic year.
Employing hundreds of students at Georgetown, federal work-study is a major factor in many students’ need-based financial aid packages; participants’ expected earnings are included in the aid arrangements.
The decrease accounts for a loss of 946 awards from the Department of Education, according to the website, from 2,983 to 2,037.
A significant amount of the loss of funds can be attributed to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. According to the Department of Education, Georgetown received $793,800 from the Recovery Act for the Federal Work-Study Program in 2009-2010. Georgetown has not received funds from the stimulus act since May 2010, according to ProPublica, an online collection of public records. This year’s lack of stimulus funds accounts for the majority of the gap between the two school years. The administration does not view the loss of funds as entirely negative, however.
“Thanks to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, we had a one-time increase in our Federal Work-Study allocation last year, but we will not be adversely affected by the return to our typical allocation this year,” university spokeswoman Julie Bataille wrote in an email.
Bataille said that the loss of funds would not affect the number of jobs provided to Georgetown students.
“We have sufficient funding to offer federal work-study this year to any student who is eligible to receive the aid,” Bataille said.
Students have begun to feel the effects of the purse-tightening in their on-campus jobs. Dan Galloway (SFS ’13) noted that the salary for his on-campus work-study job was cut in half this year due to a lack of funds, even though he received a promotion this year.
The Office of Student Financial Services declined to comment.”
