Federal Work-Study Program

Federal Work-Study 2025-26

• 2025-26 jobs will be posted to the Northwestern University Student Job Board beginning August 15, 2025, and continuing throughout the remainder of the academic year. Job postings are automatically removed after 60 days.
  • Only Northwestern faculty, staff, and approved off-campus FWS agency partners may submit job postings. 
  • Off-campus FWS agency employers must contact Trish Schumacher for assistance in submitting a job posting. 
• Students may work and earn federal work-study wages from Sunday, September 14, 2025, through Saturday, June 6, 2026. 
• Students must be eligible to earn FWS wages.
• Students may decline work-study if they are eligible and desire to convert their earnings eligibility to a subsidized Federal Direct Stafford loan, or if their parent will apply for a maximum Federal Direct Parent PLUS loan. 
• If you are hiring a student employee, please reference the list of required hiring documents. and review the New Hires Process Flowchart. 
  • Off-campus FWS agency employers must contact Trish Schumacher when hiring a student to participate in the FWS program at your organization. If a student who worked for you in the previous year will be returning for the 2024-25 academic year, please also contact Trish Schumacher.
• If you are re-employing a student who worked for you last year, consult the Re-Hires Process Flow chart. Departments are responsible for managing student employment records and salary funding updates. Ensure the most recent row of funding in myHR is set to salary account 60122 (FWS wages).
• The Federal Work-Study Office abides by the Family Educational Rights & Privacy Act (FERPA). A student's total FWS earnings limit and remaining balance are never shared with employers before the student's official hire date.
• FWS Supervisors and constituents may sign up for our FWS newsletter. Periodic emails are sent throughout the year. 

Summer 2025

• There is no FWS summer employment. Students should only be paid with FWS funding during the fall, winter, and spring quarters. 
• If the department will employ the student during the summer months, it is imperative to update the wage funding in myHR to regular student wages. If not, we will update and journal your department for your portion of the wages. It is the department's responsibility to update students' wage source appropriately in the fall if changes were made for the summer months. 

Land Acknowledgement Statement

The Northwestern campus sits on the traditional homelands of the people of the Council of Three Fires, the Ojibwe, Potawatomi, and Odawa as well as the Menominee, Miami, and Ho-Chunk nations. We acknowledge and honor the original people of the land upon which Northwestern University stands and the Native people who remain on this land today.