MEDILL NEWS SERVICE SPECIAL REPORT
Quincy Student Turns Work-Study Job Into Career of Community Service
By KIT KADLEC
MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

WASHINGTON -- John Yazwinski, executive director of a Quincy homeless shelter, knows first-hand the benefits of requiring colleges to devote a portion of their federal work-study money to community service.

A year after community service began to be required by the federal government as part of the student financial aid money colleges are given to pay qualified students for work, Yazwinski started helping at a Boston homeless shelter through his work-study program at Bentley College. The following year, he moved to Father Bill's Place homeless shelter in Quincy,and eventually moved up to his executive position in 1999. Now he is hiring more local work-study students.

But even with the requirement that college spend 7 percent of their work-study money on community service, Yazwinski said, too many students now are choosing the easiest work-study jobs, not the ones that benefit the community.

Colleges generally use the work-study money not devoted to community service for on-campus jobs where students work at the cafeteria or help grade tests. The government pays 75 percent of the students' salaries for community service, with the exception of reading and math tutoring programs at grammar schools, for which the government pays the entire salary.

The work-study program was established by Congress under the 1965 Higher Education Act to help financially strapped students pay for college with part-time jobs, but originally did not require community service jobs. In 1994, the federal government began requiring schools to devote at least 5 percent of their work-study money toward community service, and last year it was bumped to the 7 percent.

Now Sens. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., and John McCain, R-Ariz., are pushing legislation to make it 25 percent by 2010. Colleges locally and nationally say such an increase would be impossible to meet.

Even Yazwinski, a supporter of the community service work-study program, said the Bayh-McCain proposal asks for too much. He said it's the colleges' role to set up the programs, not the government's responsibility.

"I would love for schools to push for [more community service] -- not because the government requires them to do it, but because the community needs them to do it," Yazwinski said. "I think there are a lot of students out there that could be doing more service for the community."

However, the definition for community service is loose, he said. For example, Eastern Nazarene College work-study students help at area homeless shelters and daycare centers, whereas the majority of Quincy College community service work-study students work at the public libraries in Quincy and Plymouth.

"We've had a very good working relationship with Eastern Nazarene, but I wish we could have a better relationship with Quincy College," Yazwinski said.

Melissa Grabau, student employment coordinator at Bridgewater State College, said students are already near their limits in finding community service jobs at 7 percent. Bumping it to 25 percent would be unfair to the colleges, she said, since unused money earmarked for community service must be returned under current law.

"It definitely would be unrealistic for Bridgewater [to reach 25 percent]," she said. "Its more convenient for students to work on-campus, especially those without transportation."

Another problem, Grabau said, is that there are not enough community service jobs available within walking distance.

"There is only a certain amount of positions, and there is only a small portion of students who want to go off campus," she said. "A lot of times we have a position that 20 students want to do, but there is only one position in town."

Grabau said in the 1999-2000 school year, 35 students worked in community service jobs from Bridgewater, using 6.4 percent of the school's $444,545 in federal work-study money. In 2000-2001, an additional ten students took community service jobs, using 7.8 percent of work-study money.

At Eastern Nazarene, 5.8 percent of the $117,126 in federal work-study money was spent on community service in 1999-2000. Financial aid director Doug Fish said 10 percent was given to community service in 2000-2001.

Quincy College, which has all but one of its community service jobs at public libraries in Quincy and Plymouth, gave 20.7 percent of its allotted $100,000 work-study money toward community service in 1999-2000, but dropped to 11.8 percent last year.

Of these three schools, Quincy College was the only one above the national average of 11.8 percent in the 1999-2000 academic year, the most recent for which data is available.

Yazwinski said he hoped more students would work at homeless shelters than at the Quincy library, but Quincy College financial aid director Rose DeVito said a library fits into the community service definition.

"Those libraries are community libraries," she said. "Many of our students just want to work around the campus, so it's hard to get them to go out."

But Yazwinksi said a nonprofit organization would be more educational for Quincy College students.

"A lot of times when you go to the nonprofit side, you'll gain a lot more hands-on experience than you might at a profit organization," he said. "The community service program is beneficial to the student, but the value of what it brings to nonprofits is 10 times that."

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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