Dive Brief:
- The Federal Work Study program should be updated to better serve students from low-income families, according to a new Young Invincibles report sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
- The current FWS distribution formula rewards expensive higher education institutions that have been in the program the longest, while newer community colleges with the most low-income students lose out, according to the report.
- While only 16.4% of students with families that make less than $20,000 per year were in FWS in the 2011-2012 school year, 8.2% of students whose families make more than $100,000 per year were in the program.
Dive Insight:
Less than 2% of two-year public community college students have work-study jobs, compared to 21% at four-year private non-profit higher ed institutions, according to the report, titled “A Federal Work Study Reform Agenda to Better Serve Low-Income Students.” The report makes several recommendations, including creating a new formula to distribute FWS funding with a focus on enrolling and graduating Pell Grant students. Also, FWS should be promoted as a career-centric program with outside employers, instead of placing students in clerical or office work on campus, which is common.