MEDILL NEWS SERVICE SPECIAL REPORT
Wide Range of Spending on Community Service Among Wisconsin Schools
By MARILEE MILLER
MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

WASHINGTON - Brandon Irish, a first-year student at Herzing College in Madison, attends classes each day at Sennett Middle School for three hours with two to three struggling students, to help them with their work.

Irish, too, struggled in middle school and said that he wished that someone would have helped him, so when this 18-year-old computer networking student saw a work-study job listing giving him the chance to help his community, he seized it.

A sixth-grader Irish is helping was struggling in his English class one day, he said. According to Irish, the teacher was talking too fast and the student was having difficulty taking notes.

"I told him to be calm and to relax," Irish said.

The student turned to him, told him he was a " really nice guy" and thanked Irish for helping him. Irish said that it felt wonderful.

Wisconsin financial aid directors agree on the importance of community-service oriented federal work-study. It allows students to make connections, give back to the community and build their resumes, they said.

But according to Education Department data from the 1999-2000 school year, big discrepancies exist between Wisconsin schools in the percentage of money they devote to paying wages for community-service work-study jobs. Schools in Wisconsin range between 25 and 3 percent in the total amount of federal work-study funds used.

Currently federal law requires that schools direct at least 7 percent of their work-study allocation toward community-serving jobs, with at least one student participating in a literacy program called America Reads.

Each year, Edgewood College, a four-year liberal arts institution in Madison, devotes more than a quarter of federal funds received for work-study to pay students working in jobs serving the community, more than any other school in Wisconsin.

The national average is just under 12 percent.

The school classifies employment at the schools' library, open to the public, and at an on-campus nursery and grade school as community-service jobs.

It's an advantage that students can do community service and stay on campus, according to Steve Schuetz, Edgewood's director of financial aid.

Of the top 10 Wisconsin schools that put the greatest percentage of total work-study money towards community service, six are small, public, 2-year institutions.

The University of Wisconsin-Platteville is the only public, four-year institution in the top 10. The school devoted 17.5 percent of its work-study allowance to community-service jobs. It is the only school that ranks in the top 10 in Wisconsin both for money received for work-study and for the percentage of that money devoted to community service.

Even though the University of Wisconsin-Madison has the greatest number of students working in community service among Wisconsin schools, the dollar value of wages constitutes less than 10 percent of the total federal money received.

Compared with the rest of the 11 schools in the Big Ten athletic conference, UW-Madison ranked fifth in total money received for work-study. It ranked eighth in the percentage of money devoted to community service.

The conference average was more than 15 percent.

Penn State received the most money in the conference, but it devoted over 23 percent of that money to community service, the second greatest percentage.

Northwestern followed Penn State in the amount of money received from work-study, but was second worst in the Big Ten for money devoted to community service, 8.8 percent.

Tim Putzier, administrator of the work-study and student employment programs at UW-Madison, said that he was not surprised by the performance of some of the top schools, including Penn State and Michigan. Those schools, and many others, unlike UW-Madison assign students to particular work-study jobs.

"That makes all the difference in the world," he said. "If you tell a kid to work in community service, there are your numbers."

UW-Madison has several hundred contracts with nonprofit, community agencies for students interested in doing work-study. Each quarter, more than 70 organizations employ students.

UW-Madison does not count students employed at the library towards its community service work-study totals, according to Putzier.

"Yikes," he said. "The public library does not fit my idea of a community-service organization."

UW-Madison has the greatest number of students participating in community service in Wisconsin, with 346 working. The schools with the smallest number of students participating are public two-year and proprietary institutions.

But not every Wisconsin school meets the federal minimum, according to the data.

The Milwaukee School of Engineering and Northeast Wisconsin Technical College in Green Bay did not meet the 5-percent federal minimum for 1999-2000.

The school did surpass the 7-percent mimimum for the 2000-2001 school year.

Heather Hill, financial aid director at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College, said that "setting up a decent program is difficult."

The University of Wisconsin-Parkside, did not meet the federal guideline for the 2000-2001 school year, according to Randy McCready, director of scholarships and financial aid. He said that most students at UW-Parkside commute, they already have jobs and are not interested in getting work-study at all.

He said that federal officials advised him to anticipate filing waivers each year, should they be unable to meet the federal minimum, if that would be in the best interests of the school.

"We struggle trying to compete with outside companies, be it McDonald's or Burger King," he said.

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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