Junette Reyes/Staff Writer
The University’s Federal Work Study program, a program that functions by providing “…part-time jobs for undergraduate and graduate students with financial need, allowing them to earn money to help pay education expenses,” has had a stressful year.
Underfunding on the part of federal aid, as well as overestimation of funds and underestimation of participating students by the Financial Aid Office, has caused hiring departments to take the burden of providing a share of cost to fund the program “…from their individual department budgets to compensate for the funds that were overestimated” for the first time since Fall 2006.
The University was given $135,000, compared to the $300,000 to $750,000 federal funding it usually receives. The Financial Aid Office is providing 36 percent of funds for the program, and is requesting that departments provide an additional 18 percent cost-share while working on a plan for the remaining unaccounted-for funds.
This request was unexpected, though, seeing as this situation was not taken into consideration when planning their individual budgets.
Although the departments are not required to provide any funding due to a waiver the University is eligible for, they should learn from this situation and plan their future budgets with this cost-share in mind out of precaution.
Granted, the departments have no fault in the chaos of the program, and they are not the ones that should be planning to ensure this never happens again. They are, however, having trouble providing funds for their unexpected cost-share.
Because of this, I believe they should plan a cost-share within their individual budgets from now on out of preliminary caution, whether they do or do not need to provide funds for the program.
This would not only keep departments from being jeopardized, but it won’t jeopardize the students either, considering that “…without [their cost-share] students’ awards would have to be cut by 18%” this time around, as explained by Financial Aid Director Francisco Valines.
Whether they decide to plan for an 18 percent cost-share or a 25 percent cost-share is up to the departments.
Nicole Castro’s article about the work-study dilemma for FIU Student Media on Oct. 5 explained that the federal government provides the majority of the money that funds the work-study program, while hiring departments are typically required to share 25 percent of the cost to fund the students’ payments during a university’s scheduled disbursement.
The University’s hiring departments are not obligated to provide a 25 percent cost-share, however, because “…FIU is a Title 2 and Title 5 institution, meaning it is a developing and Hispanic-serving institution, respectively.”
This makes the University eligible for an optional waiver, which has been used for five consecutive years and allows departments to disregard the obligatory 25 percent cost share.
This is how the Financial Aid Office then determined that the departments would need to provide an 18 percent cost-share to somewhat cover what they would provide with a 25 percent cost-share in order to not cut the students’ awards.
Planning for the program was conducted poorly, and could have made all the difference if there were not any mistakes in estimates.
The Financial Aid Office and the hiring departments need to learn from this situation to improve their plans for the future of the program, should the program be federally underfunded again.
While the Financial Aid Office needs to correctly assess their estimates to ensure this never happens again, hiring departments should still have a cost-share accounted for in their individual budgets out of precaution, so as to not jeopardize themselves or the students.
junette.reyes@fiusm.com
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