The Federal Work Study Program
The FWS program provides part-time employment for undergraduate and graduate students with financial need, allowing them to earn money to help pay education expenses. The program encourages community service work and work related to the student’s course of study.
Community Service Requirement in the FWS Program
An institution of higher education must use at least seven percent of the sum of its initial and supplemental FWS allocations for an award year to compensate students employed in community service activities.
Community service activities include activities in which a student serves as a mentor for such purposes as tutoring, performing the duties of a student success coach, supporting educational and recreational activities, and counseling, including career counseling.
Prior Guidance
Guidance in the 2020-2021 Federal Student Aid (FSA) Handbook stated:
“In order to be considered community service, the job has to be in an area that is open, accessible, and used by the community at large. Community service includes a whole host of jobs and is not limited to reading tutors. For example, a school population is not considered ‘open, accessible, and used by the community at large,’ and therefore, in this context, is not considered a community.”
We are aware that some institutions interpreted our use of the word “school” in the example to mean that FWS jobs tutoring or mentoring in a public K-12 school would not count toward an institution’s seven percent community service requirement. The Department of Education updated that guidance beginning in the 2021-2022 FSA Handbook (and subsequent FSA handbooks) to state:
“For example, the population of an institution of higher education is not considered ‘open, accessible, and used by the community at large,’ and therefore, in this context, is not considered a community.”
We clarified that jobs where services are offered exclusively to students, staff, and faculty of an institution of higher education are not open or accessible and cannot be used by the community at large. In contrast, public K-12 schools are by design open and accessible to the community at large, and therefore jobs providing tutoring and mentoring services within these settings meet the criteria for community service activities under 34 CFR § 675.2(b).
We hope that the amendment to the FSA Handbook and this Dear Colleague Letter will assure institutions that they may offer FWS jobs that provide mentoring in a public K-12 school and that these jobs do count toward the community service requirement.
Contact Information
If you have questions regarding the specific contents of this letter, please contact Aaron Washington at aaron.washington@ed.gov.
If you have questions regarding FWS in general, please send them through the Customer Support process in Federal Student Aid’s Help Center: Help Center | Home (ed.gov). When submitting a question, please enter your name, email address, topic, and question. When selecting a topic, please select "FSA Ask-A-FED/Policy."
Sincerely,
Annmarie Weisman
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy, Planning, and Innovation
Office of Postsecondary Education