How much money should I request for my student teaching?

I had a meeting today with my student teaching coordinator, and he told me he needs to put in a request for student teaching money. He said he needed to know how much I wanted to request, and the amount I requested would be how much I would be paid (for the Spring semester). He seemed very certain that the amount I requested was the amount I would receive, as long as I did my student teaching on campus. <br><br>I'll be student teaching in the spring, and I'll be receiving no stipend or compensation from any of the programs I'm a part of. My student teaching coordinator said it would be difficult to find a job, but with this money I would still be able to pay my rent, and have a little extra for miscellaneous expenses. <br><br>I pay rent of $500 a month. I have an emergency fund of a little over $10,000. I'm planning on student teaching for four months. So ideally, I would like to pay my rent for that time period while I'm not receiving any other compensation, and still have that money left over in my emergency fund (because I'm not sure how long it will take me to find a job after graduation).<br><br>I'm currently living by myself in a one bedroom apartment, but I'll be moving back in with my parents temporarily for the Spring semester. So I won't have the burden of paying rent while I'm student teaching. But I'll still be responsible for paying for that rent. <br><br>I can't begin paying my rent for the Spring semester until the first of January, but I'll want to pay it for four months, which is $2000. I'm pretty sure I can't ask for that amount, though. It seems kinda ridiculous to me to ask for that much money, as it does seem like a lot to me. <br><br>I was thinking of asking for $1500. I don't know if that's an appropriate amount or not, but I thought that might be more reasonable to ask for. I would also just save any extra money I got after paying for rent, and add it to my emergency fund, and use it later for a car down payment or whatever. <br><br>But I don't know if I should be thinking more in terms of hourly compensation. My professor told me that if I worked 20 hours a week for the 16 weeks I was doing student teaching at $15 an hour, I would be paid just under $5000. Which is way more than what I was thinking. I didn't realize that it worked that way. But I don't know if I would request that much. I think I would feel guilty asking for that much money. Plus I still don't know if that's how it would work. I don't know if they'll pay me that much money just because I requested it. <br><br>But I also don't want to lowball myself. I want to make sure I still have enough money set aside for my rent, and I want to have a little extra as a safety net. But I don't want to ask for money I feel guilty about accepting. <br><br>So if anyone has done student teaching before, what amount of money did you request? Was there a particular way you went about figuring that out? I just don't know how to go about this.