Working Your Way Through College

by Bob Weinstein

College students have always worked to help pay their tuition. Students today, however, are paying a larger share of the college cost than they did a decade ago, according to the American Council on Education (ACE), a Washington, D.C.-based organization representing 1,700 American colleges. A recent ACE survey of college and university administrators found that the need for students to work has been one of the most significant changes in the last ten years. This should not be surprising, because college tuition has been rising steadily.

The good news is that colleges offer different work options, which ought to be investigated thoroughly. Here are four programs:

• Work study programs. The most common is the Federal Work Study (FWS) program, designed for students who need to pay for a portion of their college expenses. Students must fill out federal aid forms to determine awards based on their needs. The federal government provides funds to pay the major portion of the wages of student workers, while the school contributes the remainder. Typically, most of the jobs are on campus. FWS programs vary from school to school. Due to their size, large schools offer more work study options. To get information on FWS programs or general federal student aid information, call the U.S. Department of Education's toll-free number (1-800-4-FED AID).

• Campus (or state-funded) programs. Like the Federal Work Study program, jobs are awarded on a need basis. Typically, most of the jobs involve some kind of community service.

• College-coordinated jobs. All students can take advantage of these programs, irrespective of financial need. Many of the larger schools, for example, have what they call an "institutional" or "campus payroll," earmarked solely for campus jobs. The jobs range from maintenance and clerical positions to lifeguard work at the university pool.

• Cooperative Education Programs. Defined as an educational strategy integrating classroom curriculum with academically related work experience, a co-op experience allows students to pay for a significant share of their tuition by working at a job (or jobs) related to their major. Students receive college credits for work experience. One semester of full-time work usually equals three college credits.

College administrators universally agree that co-operative education programs provide one of the best ways to secure a college education in the 1990s.

Northeastern University in Boston boasts the largest co-op program in a private college in the United States, involving 8,500 of its 10,500 day students. Co-op students at Northeastern earned about $80 million a year, defraying 75 percent of their tuition.

The University of Cincinnati, the birthplace of cooperative education (started in 1906) offers the largest co-op program at a public college, with 3,500 co-op students earning more than $25 million a year.

Colleges offer two types of co-op arrangements: the traditional alternating plan and the more popular parallel arrangement. In the former, students work one semester and go to school the next, whereas in the latter, they combine work and study by going to school full-time while working part-time. Engineering schools usually offer five-year co-op plans, while conventional liberal arts schools offer co-ops as part of the four-year curriculum.

More on: Starting College