CACC Programs » Federal Work-Study Community Service » Stanford University

Stanford University

Making Federal Work-Study Flexible to Serve Students’ Needs

http://haas.stanford.edu
Contact #1: Daisy Sanchez, Community Study Work-Study Coordinator, daisyc@stanford.edu
Contact #2 :Jon McConnell, Student Development Programs Director, Haas Center for Public Service,
650-725-2867, jonmc@stanford.edu

Stanford University is among a few other institutions across the country to provide full-time summer work opportunities for students attending their institutions financed through Federal Work-Study. Stanford, however, has embraced this approach beyond all others and in summer 2005, 160 students took advantage of the opportunity.

In collaboration with Stanford’s Financial Aid Office, the program is managed by Stanford’s Haas Center for Public Service, Stanford’s summer program serves student needs and provides notable advantages to governments and nonprofit organizations:

Student Benefits

• Ravenswood Tutors help elementary school students develop language and literary skills on a one-on-one basis

  By offering students the ability to work full-time in the summer, often in their own communities, students are more able to see directly the impact of their work, feel wholly invested in the service, and learn more substantively from the service organizations’ staff and clients.
• For students who are carrying heavy academic loads or need to concentrate their attention on their studies, summer community service work allows them to help pay their way through the university without compromising their attention to their academic purposes and goals.
• Summer opportunities may enrich the students’ learning experience by allowing them to work in settings unavailable to them at Stanford—such as working in an inner-city job. Students also can work in parts of the country different from where they have lived and open their eyes to problems and needs near their homes.

Advantages for Nonprofit Organizations and Government Agencies

• For nonprofit organization and government, Stanford’s summer FWS program benefit from the opportunity to have additional full-time staff over a sustained period of time. Many small community organizations’ leaders feel that the management costs and extra administration of having several part-time student employees scattered through the year sometimes diminishes the gains. One full-time student for a concentrated period over the summer can cut those costs. For others, having a fulltime student employee may allow those organizations to maintain their service levels during times when staff members are on vacations.
• 5) Depending on the matching arrangements, the payroll costs for nonprofits and government agencies to get help from FWS summer service students are almost nil. Stanford charges the receiving organization only 10 percent of students’ wages and the university pays the rest. In addition, Stanford pays the student’s salary and does not bill the agency for its portion of the salary until the end of the student’s summer service, so there is only one transaction (and no payroll problems) for the agency.

Summer Service Procedures

The Haas Center has developed program requirements regarding student and organization eligibility, work restrictions, and community organizations’ responsibilities regarding training, supervising, and advising student workers, in addition to reporting and evaluation procedures. To review these requirements for students and community organizations, and application forms, community organization contracts, and procedures.