Don't ignore service

Tommy is an average college student. Unable to afford IU on his own, the University set him up with the Federal Work-Study Program. Tommy is now a "crew member" at Burger King in the IMU. Tommy spends a considerable amount of time outside of classes next to the deep fryer earning back at minimum wage the loans that are keeping him a full-time student.\nSounds fair, right? Give a little back to the university that is loaning you a percentage of your tuition. Well, that's all fine and dandy, except this is not the original basis for the work-study program. The real deal was created by Congress in 1964 with the intent that students would work off their student loans with community service.\nColleges, for the most part, have been hesitant to adhere to high percentages of community service for their work-study students, according to a project done by The Washington Monthly and Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.\nTheir survey (found at www.washingtonmonthly.com) created a new college ranking system based on enrollment in ROTC programs, the Peace Corps and the percentage of work-study students who paid off their college loans with community service. \nThe results are disgusting.\nWhile IU does not fall in the Worst 20 Schools for Community Service, it also doesn't even come close to being part of the Top 20. In fact, no Big Ten school is cited in either extreme, although Indiana's Butler University and University of Notre Dame both made the Top 20 Worst in the private four-year category.\nAs far as the Peace Corps goes, the University of Michigan (65), Penn State University (56) and University of Wisconsin (who at 93 actually took first place) hit the top of the list as they produced some of the highest numbers of volunteers for large universities in 2001.\nIn the ROTC category and the subcategory of highest annual Navy enrollment, the Big Ten's lone shark was Purdue University, producing 161 in 2001.\nThe only place IU was found was in the percentages of work-study students that actually do community service, where IU took second to last in the Big Ten at 9.3 percent, with Kentucky taking the spot as the ultimate loser at 8.9 percent.\nOnly 9.3 percent of students in work-study actually doing community service? That's simply not acceptable.\nCommunity organizations across the country say that work-study students are more reliable and committed than part-time volunteers. When community service is an actual job, it is taken more seriously, and the work is more effective.\nIf IU would put more students in service-oriented jobs, then the minimum wage jobs at the bookstore or Burger King could be available for people on welfare who desperately need any form of income available. This would open up the job market in Bloomington and increase the amount of service done by students tremendously.\nSounds perfect to me. So why does IU continue to shrug away from its responsibilities? The same reason why some cringed at the new football coach's salary: money.\nIn the end, it always goes back to the green, doesn't it? And money in this struggle is key. \nMany colleges and universities don't want to shell out the dough to pay townies to slap together burgers or shelve books when they can get students up to their ears in debt to do it as payback. And this takes us back to the problem mentioned before of closing the job market to people outside the student community and killing all hopes of steady volunteer work.\nIU, Mr. Brand & Co., I hope you decide to get on the ball on this one. I challenge you to raise our standards of community service.