The Department of Education has now issued instructions to assist schools in the reporting of student-level earnings for the Federal Work-Study (FWS) program.
In a June 25 Electronic Announcement, the Department of Education outlines the operational guidance for schools as they begin reporting Federal Work-Study earnings for the 2024 calendar year. The implementation was planned for June 29.
The school-reported data for the FWS program will be used to accurately calculate the Student Aid Index (SAI) for financial aid recipients. The 2024 calendar year data will be used for the 2026-27 FAFSA.
For each student, the school must report the total gross amount of all FWS earnings (both institutional and federal share, as applicable). Amounts reported in COD must be rounded to the nearest whole dollar and will be for earnings paid from January 1, 2024 through December 31, 2024.
Schools will report FWS earnings paid even if the student is no longer enrolled at the school. Since some students may attend more than one college during a calendar year, COD will allow multiple schools to report for the same student and Federal Student Aid will use the combined total of the student’s FWS earnings.
Schools will need to report FWS earnings either via batch submission using the Campus-Based XML Schema version 1.0b or via the COD website. More detailed information is provided in Volume 4 of the COD Technical Reference.
Since a calendar year will include two different award years, schools can report the FWS data using one of the two methods outlined in the announcement. Schools need to be aware that they cannot change the reporting method after records have been accepted, without first zeroing out all accepted records and starting over.
It is recommended that schools complete the submission and COD System acceptance of the FWS earnings for the 2024 calendar year before the 2026-27 FAFSA form is released.
Questions can be directed to the FSA Partner and School Relations Center at 1-800-848-0978 or via email at CODSupport@ed.gov.
