As part of his call for Americans to volunteer, President Bush sent a proposal to Congress Wednesday calling for a “Citizen Service Act.” Under the proposal, Bush wants to increase funding for federal volunteer programs such as AmeriCorps, Senior Corps, and Learn and Serve America to increase participation. More pertinent to college students is the overhaul in work-study grants.

The Citizen Service Act calls for increasing the percentage of work-study students working in community service from the current 7 percent to a whopping 50 percent, meaning a significant shift from the current academic focus of work-study grants. This is bad news for UW-Madison students.

Last year, 3,127 students participated in the federal work-study program and were awarded $5,897,209 in wages (including both federal and employer contributions) for employment primarily on campus — less than 10 percent were involved in community-service type jobs. To significantly alter this ratio would be detrimental to both students and the university.

The most obvious effect on students would be decreased job opportunities. In Madison, the need for volunteer labor is much lower than most cities; it is simply unreasonable to expect 50 percent of UW work-study students to find community-service jobs.

More importantly, many work-study students would be denied valuable experience in their chosen field of study, whether it is working as research assistants in labs or tuning pianos for the music department. The university would lose out for the same reason — being the No. 2 research school in the country requires a lot of research assistants.

In addition, many work-study jobs provide federally funded labor for many of the university’s day-to-day activities. This is especially important in this time of tight budgets.
Volunteering is a noble cause, but the federal government needs to keep the academic and research missions of universities in mind, as well as budgetary and local realities. No two universities are alike — federal work-study funds can maximize impact only by allowing universities to design their own beneficial programs, rather than mandating a certain number of off-campus jobs.