Rhode Island College students have been visiting elementary schools across the state, helping kids learn how to read and do math.
No, they’re not education majors (although a few might be). They are working students, taking advantage of a federal work-study program that subsidizes the wages of students trying to pay their way through school.
The 40-year-old program, run by the U.S. Department of Education, generally funds 75 percent of a qualified student’s salary; their college or university pays the remaining 25 percent.
Seifert Systems Invests in Energy Efficiency to Strengthen Operations
For manufacturers, energy is more than just another operating expense. It plays a critical role…
Learn More
At RIC, for example, 467 students earned more than $700,000 last year to help pay their way through school. Nationwide, more than 700,000 students at some 3,200 colleges earned a combined $917 million in 2000, according to the Department of Education. They earned an average of $1,252.
“We have many students who want work related to their subject area, who want to get a leg up in their chosen field,” said Ellen Weaver Paquette, assistant director of the career development center at RIC. “Then there are other who those who want ‘job jobs,’ who are simply looking to juice their incomes a bit.”
Most work-study students are employed directly by their schools, perhaps shelving books at the campus library or washing sweaty uniforms in the athletics department laundry room. Many students, however, also work out in the community – like the RIC students working in the America Reads program.
Federal law requires that at least 7 percent of a school’s work-study funding be put aside for community service work. But some lawmakers in Congress would like to boost that percentage substantially.
President Bush, meanwhile, wants to go much further, proposing a 50 percent requirement last year.
The proposals have unnerved administrators in many financial-aid offices across the country.
Liz Hollander is executive director of the Providence-based National Campus Compact, a coalition of more than 850 college and university presidents committed to civic-minded higher education. She said colleges, often for pragmatic reasons, generally have resisted the recent calls for stiffer community service requirements.
“You have to develop and nurture relationships with community partners, you have to train students, there are transportation costs involved,” Hollander said.
She added that it’s often tough for hard-working students – those who work, say, 20 hours or more a week – to juggle their schoolwork with an off-campus job.
And schools cite another problem with mandating a greater degree of community service from work-study students: Campus jobs will go wanting, leaving schools to pay for replacements out of their own pockets.
“We’ve got students working on campus within our departments,” said Doreen Del Monaco, assistant director of financial aid and the work-study coordinator at Stonehill College in Easton, Mass., which has about 650 students in its work-study program. “If we didn’t have these students working, we would have to go out and hire other people.”
At the Rhode Island School of Design, 32 work-study students participated
in community service jobs during the 2001-2002 school year – just barely reaching
the 7 percent threshold.
