Watch this video. You know what it is going to say, but watch it anyway.
I found this yesterday afternoon, about two hours before I was told that because of my student loans, I was not eligible to take a job via the WorkStudy program at school to supplement my income after my unemployment insurance runs out.
Background: One of my instructors asked me if I would like to help out doing improvements to the welding shop over the Summer break, and then after class during Fall Quarter. It would be a maximum of 19 hours per week and pay $12hr before taxes. I jumped at the chance to be paid to weld and get a job reference from a highly respected welder. He said I had to sign up at the Admin bldg, so I went to do so.
I went there to fill out the paperwork and the person handling my paperwork noticed my FAFSA loan in the system. She told me to wait a minute and walked off. She came back and had new additional paperwork for me to fill out and for me to give to the instructor to fill out.
Essentially, I am not eligible to do the WorkStudy program and have to appeal via the department Dean and the school VP in charge of the Financial Aid office. The instructor has to write a letter stating why he wants me in the program. Either way, my FAFSA loan amount will be “adjusted” to compensate for the income I earn from the program.
So, either I don’t work and get all the loan money I want or I work and lose a significant amount of loan money because they believe I would then be able to pay for school myself. I am slightly torn: I want to work but I can’t do that and pay for school.
I will be awaiting the appeal, which will likely be decided in my favor, and then taking a look at the financial numbers that get put in front of me to see just how hard I have to punch myself in the balls if I take the job. I have a decently high pain threshold but I do have a limit.
I’m thinking I am going to get and keep a copy of my instructor’s letter to put in my resume file.
Yes, the massive amount of perverse incentives we have built into our “poverty reduction” programs are insane. The people that wrote the laws are either astonishingly ignorant of how incentives work and what else has been done, or they are evil, and trying to demoralize and destroy the work ethic that created this nation. Yet they call those that seek to reform these obvious flaws hardhearted of mean-spirited, when it’s exactly the opposite: they are destroying people’s souls by making them dependent wards of a capricious state.