You got served

The Department of Education has announced that it will begin toughening its enforcement of a federal work-study law. The law requires colleges to award at least 7 percent of their federal work-study funds to students involved in \ncommunity service. \nBeginning in the 2007-08 award year that began this month, colleges who fail to meet the 7 percent requirement “will be required to return FWS federal funds in an amount that represents the difference between the amount that the institution should have spent for community service and the amount that it actually spent.” Failure to comply with the requirements could lead to a series of penalties that could potentially end the schools’ work-study or federal financial aid funding \naltogether.\nThough the policy was born of good intentions, there are simply more opportunities and programs for community service at some schools than others. Specifically, larger schools tend to provide more opportunities than \nsmaller schools. \nMany of the schools that failed to meet the 7 percent requirement last year were two-year technical schools, which rightfully emphasize career training. Take a look at the list of schools that didn’t make the cut: Southern Community College (Alabama), Las Vegas College, Modern Hairstyling Institute. These aren’t exactly schools whose students can afford to lose their work-study jobs.\nAdditionally, many of these schools have no shortage of students involved in community service. They just aren’t the right students. Rhodes College in Memphis, for example, awarded only 1.6 percent of its federal work-study funds to students involved in community service last year. However, 70 percent of the total student body of Rhodes participates in some kind of community service. Many work-study students do their community service on their own time, rather than as part of their work-study, but poor reporting has led to low official percentages. \nStudents who receive work-study funds receive it for a reason. Many of them don’t have transportation or time for community service projects. Many of them are already working other jobs; after all, work-study can’t pay for everything. It seems somewhat unfair to require students who can’t pay for their educations to work specifically for community service just to get government aid. \nIf the Department of Education must require a community service quota for schools receiving work study funds, it shouldn’t matter who is doing the community \nservice. \nBut really, isn’t the idea of required community service kind of counterproductive to begin with? If there’s a cash incentive, is it still community service? The whole point is that it is done for free and performed out of the kindness of one’s heart. A mandate from the Department of Education doesn’t exactly fall into the “kindness of one’s heart” category. \nWe hope no schools will lose funding due to this crackdown, and that no already-struggling students will lose sleep over this issue. However, both situations seem highly unlikely, if the Department of Education has \nits way.