Who is eligible for fws

Search for:. Toggle navigation U. Student Loans Grants Laws Data. Funding Status. How Do I Find Information About America Reads focuses on helping children in pre-K through the 6th grade read independently and well. America Counts tutors work with children in pre-K through the 8th grade to help improve mathematical and problem-solving skills. Recruitment takes place at the beginning of each semester. Our office works in cooperation with Urbana and Champaign school districts to identify, train, and place all America Reads and America Counts tutors.

In many instances, the FWS award will replace need-based loan eligibility. Coordinators supervise tutors at their assigned site and serve as a liaison between the school or site location, the school district office, and our office.

At any type of postsecondary institution, including proprietary schools, an FWS student may be assigned to assist a professor if the student is doing work the school would normally support under its own employment program.

A proprietary school may employ a student to work for the school itself, but only in jobs that meet certain criteria. If the jobs are in community service, they may be either on or off-campus.

Students employed by a proprietary school and performing community service do not have to provide student services that are directly related to their education. The FWS job may not involve soliciting potential students to enroll at the proprietary school. In general, FWS jobs that primarily benefit the proprietary school are not student services. For example, jobs in facility maintenance or cleaning are never student services.

Jobs in the admissions or recruitment area of a school are not acceptable student services because such jobs are considered to involve soliciting potential students to enroll at the school. This does not mean that the FWS student must be enrolled in an academic program for that field.

Instead, it means that the FWS student must be receiving work experiences that are directly applicable to the skills needed for his or her career path. Although the student is not pursuing a career as a librarian, the student would still be able to work in the library. The job is directly related to his or her training because he or she is learning customer service and basic office functions that are applicable to work in an air-conditioning repair shop or dealership.

Student services are services that are offered to currently enrolled students. Students are persons enrolled or accepted for enrollment at the school. However, an FWS student who provides services to both current students and former students is providing student services because the services are offered to currently enrolled students. For example, an FWS student provides job placement assistance to current students and alumni of the school.

The FWS student is considered to be providing student services because his or her services are offered to current students and alumni. Student services do not have to be direct services or involve personal interaction with other students. Services are considered student services if the services provide a benefit either directly or indirectly to currently enrolled students.

The fact that a job has some operational functions does not preclude it from being an acceptable FWS job as long as it furnishes student services. A postsecondary school including a proprietary school may use FWS funds to pay a portion of the wages of a student who is employed off campus by certain nonprofit agencies or private employers.

For FWS purposes, a private nonprofit organization is one in which no part of the net earnings of the agency benefits any private shareholder or individual. Such an organization must be incorporated as nonprofit under federal or state law. A school classified as a tax-exempt organization by either the federal or state Internal Revenue Service also meets this requirement. Examples of private nonprofit organizations generally include hospitals, day care centers, halfway houses, crisis centers, and summer camps.

Work performed off campus must be in the public interest. Work in the public interest is defined as work performed for the welfare of the nation or community rather than work performed for a particular interest or group. Political activity, whether partisan or nonpartisan, does not qualify as work in the public interest.

For example, a student is not considered to be working in the public interest if working at voting polls—even if he or she only checks off the names of those who came to vote and does not pass out flyers supporting a particular candidate. Also, a student is not considered to be working in the public interest if working to support an independent candidate. Another example of nonpartisan political activity is work for a city political debate. Working for an elected official as a political aide also does not qualify as work in the public interest.

For example, a student could not represent a member of Congress on a committee. However, a student could be assigned to the staff of a standing committee of a legislative body or could work on a special committee, as long as the student would be selected on a nonpartisan basis and the work performed would be nonpartisan. Under certain circumstances, work for an elected official responsible for the regular administration of federal, state, or local government may be considered to be in the public interest.

Such a person would not create, abolish, or fund any programs but would run them. Working for a sheriff would be acceptable, as would working for an elected judge because he or she has direct responsibility for the judicial system. An FWS position that involves lobbying at the federal, state, or local level is not work in the public interest.

In deciding whether work is in the public interest, schools must consider the nature of the work as well as that of the organization. If only members may use the facilities, FWS employment is not in the public interest. Students are prohibited from receiving FWS wages for working at the U. Department of Edu- cation due to the potential appearance of a conflict of interest. Normally, employment in a foreign country is not permissible under the law. How- ever, a school with an additional location in a foreign country may employ students under FWS if the branch has its own facilities, administrative staff, and faculty.

Stu- dents may also be employed by a U. A student may not be employed for a nonprofit organization in a foreign country. A student studying for a business administration degree could work in a bank handling customer transactions, for example.

Private for-profit organizations do not qualify as employers for community service under the FWS Program. The Department allocates FWS federal funds to institutions under a statutory formula that requires an institutional match. Any student enrolled at a postsecondary institution participating in the FWS program is eligible for FWS employment if the student meets all federal student aid eligibility requirements, including having financial need. A job under the FWS Program must be suitable to the scheduling and other needs of the student and must, to the maximum extent practicable, complement and reinforce the educational programs or vocational goals of the student.

Financial aid administrators at postsecondary institutions are responsible for ensuring compliance with Federal laws and regulations regarding FWS employment, including employment in apprenticeship programs.

Apprenticeship providers must coordinate with postsecondary institutions to ensure compliance with all relevant requirements. If your school would like an off-campus organization to employ FWS students, your school must enter into a written agreement—a contract—with the off-campus organization. A written agreement is required with the off-campus organization even if your school is considered the employer of the FWS student. The school must make sure the off-campus organization is a reliable agency with professional direction and staff and that the work to be performed is consistent with the purpose of the FWS Program.

Note that there is a model off- campus agreement at the end of this chapter. The model need not be followed exactly but serves as a guide. The agreement should specify what share of student compensation and other costs will be paid by the off-campus organization.

For-profit organizations must pay the nonfederal share of student earnings. Any off-campus organization may pay:. The agreement sets forth the FWS work conditions and establishes whether the school or the off-campus organization will be the employer for such purposes as hiring, firing, and paying the student. The employer is generally considered to be the entity that will control and direct the work of the FWS students—supervising them at the work site, regulating their hours of work, and generally ensuring that they perform their duties properly.

The school must make up any payments the off-campus organization does not make. To fulfill that responsibility, the school must keep copies of time sheets and payroll vouchers and keep evidence that the students were actually paid usually copies of the canceled checks or receipts signed by the students. School officials should periodically visit each off-campus organization with which they have an off-campus agreement to determine whether students are doing appropriate work and whether the terms of the agreement are being fulfilled.

The agreement must state whether the school or off-campus organization is liable for any on-the-job injuries to the student. The employer is not automatically liable.

In determining whether to continue an off-campus agreement, many schools have found it helpful to require that students submit a formal evaluation of their work experience at the end of the assignment. The school may also use the evaluation to help off-campus agencies improve their work programs. The school must supply the off-campus organization with this information.

A school must take additional steps if it receives more money under an employment agreement with an off-campus agency than the sum of:. In that situation, the school must handle the excess in one of three ways:.

Use it to reduce the federal share on a dollar-for-dollar basis. Hold it in trust for off-campus employment during the next award year. Your school should have written policies that describe the afore mentioned procedures, the documentation the off-campus organization must provide, and how the reimbursement process will be handled. Your accounting entries must completely track the payment of the federal share to the off-campus organization and must be backed by the original documents specified in your policies.

Your school is liable for federal funds expended for which it does not have proper records or documentation. If your agreement with the off-campus organization specifies that the school will pay the students and bill the off-campus organization for its share, the agreement should include the steps the school will take, the documentation the school will provide, and the time frame within which the off-campus employer will pay the school its share of the FWS compensation.

Your school should have a system for ensuring that off-campus employers are billed for their share of FWS wages in a timely manner. In addition, you should have a system for following up if bills remain unpaid after a reasonable period of time. The JLD Program lo- cates and develops off-campus job opportunities for students who are currently enrolled in eligible institutions of higher education and who want jobs regardless of financial need.

Under the JLD Program, your school must locate and develop off-campus jobs that are suitable to the scheduling and other needs of the employed student and must, to the maximum extent practicable, complement and reinforce the educational program or vocational goal of the student. JLD jobs may be part-time or full-time, for either a for- profit or nonprofit employer. Any student employed in a job developed under the JLD Program must be currently enrolled at the school placing him or her in a job.

A school may place in JLD jobs both students who do not meet FWS student eligibility criteria and those who do meet those criteria. However, using JLD funds to find jobs only for FWS students would not satisfy the program purpose of expanding off-campus jobs for students who want jobs regardless of financial need.

When establishing or expanding a program to locate and develop off-campus jobs, including community service jobs, a school may use up to the lesser of:. You may not use JLD funds to:. A school is expected to generate total student wages exceeding the total amount of the federal funds spent under JLD.

This requirement, unlike the institutional-share requirement for FWS earnings, cannot be waived. Allowable costs of carrying out the JLD Program include:. JLD telephone charges, including installation of a separate line for off-campus employers;.

JLD costs for supplies, equipment, and furniture;. Costs that are not allowable are costs related to purchasing, constructing, or altering the facilities that house a JLD project. Indirect administrative costs also are not allowable.

Other examples of indirect administrative costs are lighting, heating, or custodial costs incurred as part of the normal operations of the facility in which the JLD program is administered, such as the financial aid or placement offices. Your school may enter a written agreement with other eligible schools for those schools to establish and operate a JLD Program for its students. The agreement must designate the administrator of the program and must specify the terms, conditions, and performance standards of the program.

Each school that is part of the agreement retains responsibility for properly disbursing and accounting for the federal funds it contributes under the agreement. For example, each school must show that its own students have earned wages that exceed the amount of federal funds the school contributed to locate and develop those jobs.

If your school uses federal funds to contract with another school, suitable performance standards must be part of that contract. You may not develop performance standards, conditions, or terms that are inconsistent with the statute or regulations.

In all cases, the performance standards should be clearly understandable, because they will be included in the formal written agreement that each party must observe as part of its responsibility within the arrangement. You must report the total JLD expenditures, federal expenditures for JLD, institutional expenditures for JLD, number of students for whom jobs were located or developed, and total earnings for those students.

A school is permitted to use a portion of the FWS funds it allocates for locating and developing off-campus job opportunities to identify apprenticeship opportunities and help employers develop jobs that are part of apprenticeship programs—regardless of whether the students are recipients of federal student aid.

A comprehensive student work-learning-service program is a student work-service program that:. Allocated and reallocated program funds may be used to:. Allocated and reallocated program funds, as well as funds transferred from the FWS program may not be used to pay costs related to the purchase, construction, or alteration of physical facilities or indirect administrative costs. Work Colleges must provide a minimum dollar-for-dollar institutional match for all jobs in the Work-Colleges Program.

Unlike the FWS Program, there are no exceptions to this matching requirement. This includes but is not limited to those exceptions for the FWS Federal share discussed in Chapter 1. For example, a student performing reading tutor or family literacy activities under the Work-Colleges Program must still be paid with funds that are matched by the school on a dollar-for-dollar basis.

If a school transfers a portion or all of its FWS allocation into the Work-Colleges Pro- gram, the funds must be used for the purpose of carrying out the Work-Colleges Pro- gram to provide flexibility in strengthening the self-help-through-work element. The school must set up two accounting records, one for each of these programs.

If a school transfers a portion or all of its FWS allocation into the Work-Colleges Program, the accounting records for each program must clearly show that transfer. A school may only award and pay funds under the Work-Colleges Program to students who have a financial need. Students without financial need and students whose need has been met through other financial assistance must be paid with institutional funds only. However, when performing JLD activities under the Work-Colleges Program the match is always on a dollar-for-dollar basis.

In this case you may not claim funds twice by also using the separate Work-Colleges allowable administrative allowance to pay for the same costs. Board, if the student contracts with the institution for board;. Room, if the student contracts with the institution for room; and.

Other educationally related charges incurred by the student at the institution; and. Other institutionally related charges incurred by the student at the institution.

Except for the noncash contributions allowed under paragraph e 2 and 3 of this section, if an institution obtains written authorization from a student, the institution may. Except if prohibited by the Secretary under the reimbursement or cash monitoring payment method, hold on behalf of the student any FWS compensation that would otherwise be paid directly to the student under paragraph c of this section. May not require or coerce the student to provide that authorization;. Must allow the student to cancel or modify that authorization at any time; and.

Must clearly explain how it will carry out that activity. A student may authorize an institution to carry out the activities described in paragraph d 1 of this section for the period during which the student is enrolled at the institution. If a student modifies an authorization, the modification takes effect on the date the institution receives the modification notice.

If a student cancels an authorization to use his or her FWS compensation to pay for authorized charges under paragraph b of this section, the institution may use those funds to pay only those authorized charges incurred by the student before the institution received the notice. If a student cancels an authorization to hold his or her FWS compensation under paragraph d 1 ii of this section, the institution must pay those funds directly to the student as soon as possible, but no later than 14 days after the institution receives that notice.

If an institution holds excess FWS compensation under paragraph d 1 ii of this section, the institution must. Identify the amount of funds the institution holds for each student in a subsidiary ledger account designed for that purpose;. Maintain, at all times, cash in its bank account in an amount at least equal to the amount of FWS compensation the institution holds for the student; and.

FWS Jobs and Employers. Student eligibility for FWS. Selecting students. FWS federal share. FWS at Private for-profit organizations. Timing of FWS institutional share and noncash contributions. FWS nonfederal share sources. Nature and source of FWS institutional share. Paying FWS Overtime. FWS Eligible employers. FWS Employment conditions, limitations, and academic credit.

FWS wage rates. Replacement of workers prohibited. Waiver of FWS Community Service Requirements for and award years For both the and award years, the FWS community service expenditure requirements are waived. Job Descriptions. Each FWS position should have a job description that includes the:. Establishing Wage Rates. Minimum wage information. Wage rates. FWS timesheets and payroll vouchers.

Payroll Vouchers. Paying Students.