As noted in a June 12, 2025 Electronic Announcement, we will implement Common Origination and Disbursement (COD) System functionality to enable schools to begin reporting Federal Work-Study (FWS) earnings for the 2024 calendar year. Implementation is planned for June 29, 2025. In this Electronic Announcement, we provide operational information to assist schools in the reporting of student-level earnings information for the FWS Program.
Under the FAFSA Simplification Act, we will continue to use school-reported data for the FWS Program to accurately calculate the Student Aid Index (SAI) for aid recipients. FWS data reported for the 2024 calendar year will be used in the 2026–27 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA®) processing cycle.
In the following sections, we provide information about reporting FWS earnings to the COD System.
Schools must report, for each student, the total (both institutional and federal share, as applicable) gross amount of all FWS earnings for any portion of the applicable calendar year. Amounts reported in COD must be rounded to the nearest whole dollar. For the 2026–27 FAFSA processing cycle, schools will be reporting FWS earnings disbursed at their institution from Jan. 1, 2024, through Dec. 31, 2024.
FWS earnings amounts must be reported to the COD System in a manner consistent with the requirements for including such amounts on the W-2 (see General Instructions for Forms W-2 and W-3). Per the “Calendar year basis”, the amount of FWS earnings should include all amounts that were paid during the calendar year, from January 1 through December 31, even if the work was performed outside of the calendar year. In addition, any portion of a student’s FWS earnings that is paid in the form of non-cash contributions (e.g., payments toward tuition, room, or board, etc.), must be included in the total FWS earnings that are reported to the COD System, except when such non-cash payments are made by a federally approved Work College for work performed under the comprehensive work-service-learning program.
Schools must report for any student who received FWS earnings regardless of that student’s enrollment status at the school (i.e., a school will report FWS earnings paid even if the student is no longer enrolled at the school).
Because some students may attend different schools, there will be instances where more than one school is reporting FWS earnings for a particular student. The COD System will allow multiple schools to report for the same student. FSA will use the combined total of the student’s FWS earnings by all schools in the SAI calculation. Note: Schools will be able to view the total FWS earnings for each student (including other reporting schools and the respective amounts) on the COD website.
As explained in the COD Technical Reference, schools will report FWS earnings information via batch submission using the Campus-Based XML Schema version 1.0b or via the COD website. When reporting data, schools will be required to submit the following information:
-
Last name
-
Date of Birth
-
SSN
-
FPS Transaction Number
-
Total FWS Earnings
-
Calendar Year
Additional data elements may be submitted. Full details about required and optional fields, valid values, and other business rules are in Volume 4 of the COD Technical Reference.
Note to EDExpress Users: An update for EDExpress for Windows 2025–26, Release 2.0 will be posted at the end of June 2025 and will continue to incorporate the Campus-Based schema version 1.0b and allow for reporting FWS earnings using EDExpress.
Note: The Campus-Based XML Schema 1.0b includes an additional reporting block for FSEOG-related data, but this data will not be collected and will be reserved for future use, if needed.
As noted above, schools will report the total FWS for the 2024 calendar year, however, because the calendar year will overlap two different award years, schools will be able to report FWS data using two different methods:
-
Calendar Year Totals by Award Year – school submits two totals, one amount for the calendar year portion paid in award year 1 and a second amount for the calendar year portion paid in award year 2.
-
Calendar Year Total Amount only – school submits one total amount for the full calendar year and no award year information is included.
As an example, the table below shows information about Student A who was paid FWS earnings of $300 on each of the listed dates.
Award Year |
FWS Payment Dates ($300 each) |
Total FWS Award Year Compensation Paid |
Total 2024 Calendar Year for Award Year |
|
2023-24 |
10/1/2023 |
$1800 |
$900 |
|
2024–25 |
10/1/2024 |
$2400 |
$600 |
In this case, for reporting method 1, the school would report two separate FWS amounts of $900 and $600. Alternatively, for reporting method 2, the school would report one FWS amount of $1500. In either option, the amounts paid in 2023 or 2025 would not be reported.
Important Note: A school cannot change the reporting method it chooses after records have been accepted, without first zeroing out all accepted records and starting over. For example, if a school submits a record for the 2024 calendar year with the amount paid during the 2023–24 award year, and it is accepted, a subsequent record that denotes the 2024 calendar year only (but no award year is provided) will be rejected.
The ability for one campus to report on behalf of its locations and/or other main campuses with which it is affiliated is driven by the reporting and attending relationships established in the COD System. These relationships will be set up in accordance with existing relationships between main campuses and their locations, as well as the FISAP reporting structure currently utilized by schools. If your school has an issue with its reporting and attending relationships as established in the COD System, it may submit a request to change them via the FSA Partner and School Relations Center.
To ensure accurate SAI calculations at start-up, it is strongly recommended that schools plan to complete the submission (and COD System acceptance) of FWS earnings for the 2024 calendar year prior to the release of the 2026–27 FAFSA form. Timely advance reporting will also help limit unnecessary subsequent Institutional Student Information Record (ISIR) transactions.
If you have questions, contact the FSA Partner and School Relations Center at 1-800-848-0978. The contact center is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Eastern time, Monday through Friday. You may also email CODSupport@ed.gov.