Federal Work Study

This program is currently for students who are actively enrolled in 6 credits (including an SEYS clinical course), have completed and submitted a FAFSA for this school year, and are determined to be eligible for FWS based on their Financial Aid profile.

Participating clinical courses:

Once your eligibility has been confirmed and work study funds awarded, all participants must be onboarded by the Financial Aid Office prior to beginning their FWS time. This process includes submitting documentation via the Student Forms website, as well as an in person I-9 verification with the Financial Aid Office. While most of the documents are filled by the participant and uploaded via Student Forms, the SUPERVISOR INFORMATION section of the Student/Employer Acknowledgements Form does need to be filled and signed by the SEYS Office.

Please note that the Financial Aid Office must award funds and onboard students individually. Your patience is greatly appreciated during this process, which can take several weeks for all of our participants to be fully set up.

It is important to know what time can and cannot be used for payment as part of the FWS program. Please review the information below to ensure that you are (or are not) counting the correct time.

Can be used:

1. Time spent completing program requirements at your clinical site.

2. Time spent assisting with extracurricular activities outside of your program requirements at your clinical site (clubs, after school programs, school plays, etc).

3. Commute time (a maximum of 1 hour for travel to your clinical site and 1 hour for travel from your clinical site can be paid).

Cannot be used:

1. Time on days before your offical FWS start date.

2. ANY time where you are being paid from another source.

3. Time spent for lunch or breaks.

4. Time that conflicts with an enrolled course.

5. 60 hours throughout the semester to satisfy the Federal Credit Requirement* for a 3-credit clinical course.

*The Federal Credit Requirement is the minimum amount of time a student is expected to use in order to earn college credits. For a 3-credit clinical course, this is defined as 60 field hours and 15 seminar hours. The FWS program does not allow for students to be paid for this time.

Once your onboarding has been completed, it is time to start submitting timesheets to receive your FWS payments, which are made on a biweekly basis (participants can sign up for direct deposit on their Student Center in CUNYfirst). Please review the information below regarding timesheet submission.

Submitting your timesheet to SEYS:

1. Download the timesheet template using the link on this page.

2. Fill it in for the appropriate pay period, being sure to include your commute and lunch times for maximum accuracy. Timesheets that are filled electronically are preferred for clarity.

3. Print your filled timesheet, sign it, and have it signed by your cooperating teacher or other school official. Timesheets need to have two signatures to be processed.

*Unclear, conflicting, or unsigned timesheets may need to be resubmitted, which can result in payment delays.

4. Submit your timesheet to SEYS using the link on this page. Please do not email your timesheet to the department.

What we do with your submitted timesheets:

1. Check your times against your CUNYfirst class schedule to ensure no conflicts.

*If a class session was officially cancelled for that week, please include an email from your instructor or screenshot of the announcement on Brightspace. Otherwise, we will not be able to count that time.

2. Ensure you have not exceeded your 20 hours per week limit (26 hours, including your credit requirement time). Please note that students can spend more time per week at their clinical site, but can only be paid for 20.

3. Deduct 1.5 hours per day (for the first 40 days or until 60 hours are completed) to be counted towards your Federal Credit Requirement. We will track this for you, so you do not need to worry about setting aside that time.

4. Track how many hours of your allotted FWS award has been used so far. Hours from the Fall roll over to the Spring, but any hours remaining at the end of the Spring are lost. We will update each student periodically with their hours used and hours remaining.

5. Use this information to fill out a separate time log that is submitted by SEYS to the FWS office. That time log system tracks hours to the nearest half hour; please keep this in mind when tracking your time informally.

FWS participants are paid on a biweekly basis according to the calendar linked on this page. You can sign up for direct deposit on your Student Center in CUNYfirst.

Due to the steps required to check and process your timesheets, with must be done individually, there may be a one pay period delay between timesheet submission to SEYS and pay date from FWS. We appreciate your patience as we refine this process and work to reduce delays.

Any late timesheets submitted to SEYS will be processed with the next available pay period.