MEDILL NEWS SERVICE SPECIAL REPORT
Some Top Schools Fail Community Service Test
By KIT KADLEC and MIKE CUMMINGS
MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

WASHINGTON -- Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, two elite Cambridge campuses just a subway stop away from each other, are miles apart in their commitment to paid community service.

Harvard devoted 12.3 percent of its federal work-study money to pay students for community service jobs during the 1999-2000 academic year, while MIT allotted only 1.9 percent, according to Department of Education statistics. In that year federal law required that 5 percent of the money be used for community service.

Although the numbers are self-reported, MIT disputes the figure, saying it was 4.5 percent. In 2000-2001, the gulf between the two schools could widen, with Harvard reporting 17 percent, and MIT officials saying they committed 2.2 percent. National figures are not yet available for 2000-2001 when the requirement was raised to 7 percent.

While Harvard placed above the national average of 11.8 percent, MIT's low percentage was more characteristic of the nation's elite universities. Of the top 20 schools ranked by US News & World Report, 75 percent were below the national average in the 1999-2000 school year.

The University of Notre Dame, an institution that prides itself on its students' commitment to social service, joined MIT near the bottom of the list of top schools, devoting 3.8 percent of its work-study funds to community service.

"The leaders of higher education haven't stepped up and demonstrated their commitment to the connection of higher education and national service," said University of Michigan professor Barry Checkoway, an authority on community service and higher education.

Yet MIT director of student employment, Jane Smith, said many work-study activities MIT students do are not defined as community service but really are contributions to the public good. For example, she said, students researching a potential cure to a disease is commonly a work-study position, but that is not considered community service by law.

Congress established the work-study program in the 1965 Higher Education Act. The program provides financially strapped students with extra cash as payment for part-time employment.

In 1994, the federal government began requiring schools to devote at least 5 percent of their work-study to community service. Last year that requirement was bumped to 7 percent. Now Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Evan Bayh, D-Ind., are pushing legislation to boost it to 25 percent by 2010.

Under the program, the government covers 75 percent of the students' wages while the school or the agency employing the student pays the rest. Exceptions to this arrangement are the America Counts and America Reads programs, two national tutoring initiatives assisting grade school children.

The majority of off-campus opportunities at MIT involve teaching math or reading to local school children.

"When they have to travel off-campus, it's really hard for them because the studies are so rigorous here," Smith said. "Frequently the community service is just too far away."

Smith's Harvard counterpart, Martha Homer, disagreed that MIT students are busier.

"We are in the same community," she said. "I really don't think Harvard students have any more time than MIT students."

Smith said that a school like Harvard, with a large education program, divinity school and law school, has curriculums much more closely related to community service than MIT, which doesn't have those programs.

"The liberal arts schools with education departments have a leg up," said Smith. "The community service is already part of their curriculum."

Perhaps no school identifies itself with community service more closely than Notre Dame does.

"Community service is part of our fabric," said Joe Russo, director of financial aid at Notre Dame. "It's why many students come to our school."

In a 1999 survey conducted by the Notre Dame Center for Social Concerns, which organizes community service activities for students, 77 percent of Notre Dame students indicated that they are involved in community service at least once a year. Thirty-nine percent of surveyed students said they participated in community service on a weekly basis.

But since 1994, the school has struggled to provide the required number of community service jobs to its work-study applicants.

Russo said local service organizations do not want to pay the 25 percent matching fee required when employing work-study students, especially with so many students willing to volunteer for free.

Notre Dame sophomore Blake Brewster, a work-study student, said nobody in the student employment office alerted him to the possibility of doing community service for work-study.

"You basically have to seek out a job, and all they tell you is a Web site where some are posted," Brewster said.

Brewster said he would not be interested in doing community service for work-study because his current job manning the information desk at the student center gives him time to get his homework done.

MIT students also volunteer to serve the community.

"A lot of our students do community service," Smith said. "They'd rather not get paid for doing good deeds."

Although both schools have students doing volunteer work in the community, this is not measured in the work-study requirement. And when they fail to meet this, the school must either return the unused money, or apply for a waiver by providing a written explanation as to why the requirement was not met.

Smith said MIT returns the unused money, which according to the Department of Education, was $75,000 of the $120,000 earmarked for community service in 1999-2000. Russo said Notre Dame had received waivers when it has failed to reach the required percentage.

Unlike MIT and Notre Dame, Stanford University has had little difficulty meeting its work-study community service obligation. At 22.3 percent in 1999-2000, Stanford achieved nearly twice the national average. This year Stanford reported devoting 32.6 percent of its work-study dollars to community service.

Mary Morrison, directory of funds management at Stanford, said the school benefits from being in a large-population area with great social service needs. She said the 25-percent requirement in the McCain-Bayh legislation would be extremely difficult for rural schools to meet.

Even Harvard, located just outside Boston, would be hard pressed to meet that standard, said Homer.

"To jump from 7 to 25 percent is completely unrealistic," she said. "It's really hard for me to believe that we could do anymore."

Graphics
Graphic of Best/Worst Schools

Graphic of Top 20 U.S. Schools and Their work-study percentage spent on community service

Graphic of Best States

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