What is Veterans Affairs Work-study?
For more information about the program, please visit the VA Work Study page.
The Veterans Affairs (VA) federal work-study program offers an additional allowance to eligible students for working part-time at a school's Veterans office, VA Regional Office, VA Medical Facility, or other VA approved facility. This allowance is tax-exempt at either the state or federal minimum wage, whichever is greater, per hour. VA limits total contractual hours to 25 hours per week each term on average. Students are limited by the total number of hours that are approved on their contract each term, but they are not required to exhaust them.
VRC Job Description
Responsibility include:
- Being physically present to work in the VRC
- Organizing, cleaning, and maintaining VRC spaces, furnishings, and equipment at a high standard needed to provide welcoming and hygienic spaces for our
Veteran student services - Assisting students with VA benefit and services questions over email, phone, in-person, social media servers, and teleconferencing (Zoom)
- Assisting Veteran students with gathering VA certification paperwork
- Maintaining open communication with team members and other professional staff
- Planning and facilitating Veteran events and assisting with programming related to the VRC community
- Collaborating on Veteran-related projects with other PSU students, staff/faculty, and other campus or local partners
- Researching Veteran and military-connected benefits and opportunities locally and nationally
- Assisting the VRC Services Coordinator, Director and VSoC as needed
Additional duties include, but are not limited to: training on Veterans’ services and student resources, career development, team leadership, basic office operations such as data entry, and use of media communications through web and social media platforms.
Minimum qualifications:
- Must be able to work in-person at the Veterans Resource Center
- Must be able to follow relevant COVID protocol mandates, if any
- Applicant must be a PSU student attending courses and certified at least three-quarter time enrollment with one of the following benefits:
- Post 9/11 GI Bill (Chapter 33)
- Montgomery GI Bill (Chapter 30)
- REAP Participants
- Montgomery GI Bill-Selected Reserve (Chapter 1606)
- Dependents' Educational Assistance Program (Chapter 35)
- (Note: Dependents who qualify under Chapter 35 may use work study only while enrolled at a school in one of the 50 states.
- National Call to Service Participants
- Vocational Readiness & Employment Program (VR&E or Chapter 31)
- Must express a financial need for the position
Candidates must be able to demonstrate the following:
- Interact respectfully with a diverse group of student veterans, dependents and
their families - Answer questions about navigating student and campus life at PSU
- Assist with guiding the student to the appropriate resource
- Proficient in GSuite and/or Office applications
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills
- Comfortable engaging with other staff and university colleagues