Recent research by Medill School of Journalism graduate students on the federal work-study program has found that some elite universities have neglected to follow one of the intricacies of the Higher Education Act of 1965 – bringing attention from media and lawmakers alike to one of the law’s long-overlooked provisions.

Although many work-study students may think of their jobs as opportunities to earn easy money during college, the 1965 act establishing the program aimed in part to encourage students to engage in community outreach work. By law, 7 percent of work-study students must hold positions that qualify as community service in order for a school to receive work-study funds from the government.

A Northwestern student would fall into the community service category, for example, by earning work-study money at an Evanston school or social service agency instead of being employed by a university entity such as Norris University Center or Kellogg Graduate School of Management.

But the findings by the graduate students in Medill’s Washington Program show that many of the nation’s top schools, including Princeton University and the University of Notre Dame, have fallen below the 7 percent off-campus requirement. With 8.8 percent of its work-study students in community service jobs, NU sits above the minimum but ranks below the national average of about 12 percent.

addressing the problem

The fact that some schools have disregarded the 7 percent provision of the 1965 act was only noticed by lawmakers after Medill graduate students brought the problem to light.

The students, working under the guidance of Prof. Ellen Shearer, analyzed the community outreach aspect of the work-study program and wrote a series of stories for the Medill News Service titled “Community Service: Are Colleges Making the Grade?”

Washington Monthly editor and 1998 Medill graduate Joshua Green, who collaborated with Shearer to edit and guide their work, then used the students’ findings in an article criticizing the top-tier universities for devoting little effort to community service through work-study.

Since Green’s article was published in the magazine’s first issue of 2002, other prominent news organizations, including The Washington Post, have taken up the cause.

But the Department of Education has not yet acted to ensure compliance to the law from the schools that have fallen below the 7 percent requirement.

“What surprised me the most was that there is a congressionally mandated community service requirement,” Medill graduate student Lisa Smith said. “Even in researching this story there were very few people who even knew about this requirement.”

new regulations?

Under a new law proposed by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), NU and other schools would be required to reach a quota of 25 percent of work-study students doing community service jobs by 2010.

“Currently, only a small fraction of college work-study funds are devoted to community service, far less than what Congress originally intended when it passed the Higher Education Act in 1965,” McCain wrote in an article for Washington Monthly.

But NU Associate Provost Rebecca Dixon, who oversees the financial aid office, said the increased requirement is unrealistic, especially for colleges in rural areas where few organizations that provide social services exist.

“Work-study wasn’t designed to provide a work force to go out into the community,” she said. “I would be very surprised if the requirement rose to 25 percent.”

Dixon also criticized individuals and publications who insinuate that selective schools fail to pay a debt to civil society.

“People are sort of lambasting elite colleges and universities for not doing community service,” she said. “There are plenty of (non-work-study) students doing community service and not getting a dime for it.”

Speech senior Sari Schwartz, who holds a work-study position at the Norris front desk, said she enjoys the convenience of an on-campus university job and also does unpaid community service work through Oasis, a student-run service organization.

“It’s a nice relaxed desk job,” she said. “If you’re working during the week it can actually be really busy.”

Reaching out to the community

Green, the Washington Monthly editor, said schools like NU should be encouraged to use work-study students as ambassadors to help improve relations between the university and city.

“I don’t think I ever went in any buildings on Northwestern’s campus other than Fisk Hall, but I was vaguely aware of some tension (between students and Evanston residents),” he said. “I think you’d be hard pressed to find a better way to address (town-gown) issues than if school officials really made that commitment.”

But Dixon disagreed with the data Green used to back up his arguments, saying some schools with higher percentages of work-study students in community service positions may use questionable self-reporting methods.

For example, a school with an on-campus day care open to students and city residents might employ dozens of work-study students and consider their work community service.

“Some of those high numbers may be affected by things like that,” Dixon said.

Others said they are concerned about the prospect of colleges continuing to stretch the definition of community service to meet the heightened requirement if the McCain/Bayh “Call to Service Act” passes.

“A lot of people will be scraping to define jobs that already exist as community service,” Medill sophomore Barbara Myers said. “It also adds another bureaucratic element to financial aid.”