By Shannon Gallagher, Senior Consultant
Why this Matters Now
FAFSA simplification removed self-reported need-based earnings. Beginning with 2024–25, schools must report Federal Work Study (FWS) earnings by calendar year to COD so they’re used in needs analysis. Colleague now supports batch reporting, reducing manual entry and the risk of errors.
Federal Work Study Earnings Reporting in Ellucian Colleague Webinar
What changed (at a glance)
- Scope: Report only Federal Work Study earnings (not institutional or state).
- Timing: Calendar-year earnings aligned to the FAFSA income year (e.g., 2022 for 2024–25).
- Submission: One-by-one on COD or batch via Colleague (recommended).
- Corrections: Continue submitting corrections through the COD processing window.
Prep checklist (before you run anything)
- Confirm payroll source: Do you use Colleague Payroll?
- If yes → wages populate from the Pay-To-Date file.
- If no → obtain a calendar-year FWS earnings file from Payroll (FWS-flagged only).
- Award status hygiene: FWS awards for the two impacted award years must be in an accepted category (mixed-action awards require care).
- ICER requirement: Student needs a federally flagged ICER in one of the two award years.
- Access: Ensure staff have the new forms: PFWS, VFWS, CBDE, FCAW/VCBE; update FAUP to load Campus-Based responses.
How the Colleague process works
1) Build your work file — PFWS
Enter the calendar year (e.g., 2022).
Colleague selects students with FWS awards and a valid ICER in either award year.
If on Colleague Payroll, earnings auto-populate from Pay-To-Date. Otherwise, you’ll add amounts in the next step.
You can run in simulation first; if needed, clear and rebuild the work file.
2) Review & maintain — VFWS
Validate the selected students, edit/add earnings (if not on Colleague Payroll), and export to Excel for spot checks.
Statuses progress from Added → Changed → Sent → Received/Error.
Tip: Once a record is Sent, you can’t delete it—submit a change instead.
3) Create & transmit — CBDE
Generates the campus-based outbound file and updates statuses to Sent.
Works with TDClient directly or produces a file for EDconnect.
4) Load responses & fix errors — FCAW / VCBE
Set FAUP to load Campus-Based responses.
Received = done. Error = review the reject code, correct, and resend.
Lessons learned from the first cycle
What went smoothly
Batch creation/transmission via CBDE is straightforward.
VFWS gives a clear, editable view (and easy Excel export).
Where teams stumbled—and the workarounds
Mixed-action FWS awards: ICER/citizenship data may not pass; make the award accepted for the year, then resend.
“Error” won’t resend: Change the earnings amount (even +/-$0.01), save, then correct it back—this flips status to Changed so CBDE can pick it up.
Apostrophes in names: Some responses wouldn’t load; removing the apostrophe in the response record allowed the import (while COD accepted the data).
Address length: Over-length addresses caused file import failures. Fix by expanding the address length setting or shortening the address in the response file.
Invalid destination mailbox ID: Rare; coordinate with COD and IT. If timing’s tight, submit those few students manually on the COD campus-based site.
Multi-college districts: Ensure the correct entity ID is applied per student; some instances required manual intervention.
Practical tips to stay clean and compliant
- Align early with Payroll: Confirm how FWS flags and retro changes are handled so the Pay-To-Date file (or your import) reflects true FWS earnings.
- Communicate the calendar-year lens: Resist reconciling to academic-year CWS totals; calendar year ≠ award year.
- Bake in a QA pass: Export VFWS to compare wages to Payroll’s source file before you send.
- Document rerun steps: Keep a short SOP for clearing PFWS, re-building, and resending targeted students.
Ready to streamline your next FWS cycle?
See the end-to-end walkthrough, configuration tips, and error-handling in action.
- Watch the webinar
- Talk with a SIG Colleague expert to validate your setup, build a test plan, or co-pilot your first clean run.
