Apparently there was a dust-up over Harvard’s Dorm Crew and the appropriateness of Harvard using federal dollars to pay low income kids to clean for higher income kids.
Apparently dorm crew at Harvard is popular because it is the highest paid WS job, and flexible. I admit the idea of poor students cleaning the bathrooms/living areas of wealthier ones makes me cringe a bit.
I had work-study back in the day. I took IDs for rec equipment - mostly I studied and made sure no one jumped on the pool or ping pong tables. Our dining hall was professionally staffed. My siblings worked in a local college dining hall when they were high school students, but obviously as regular employees, not on work study.
My kid didn’t have WS but all of her paid on campus jobs were for an admin or academic department doing work relevant to her field of study. Her school doesn’t hire students to clean, there are professional, full time employees that do that.
One of my work study jobs was serving students sit down dinners in the dining hall. I never felt like i was serving the wealthier students…and was grateful for the job.
I suppose every college can chose their own jobs for work-study; but cleaning seems odd.
in my son’s fraternity, the freshmen boys do all the cleaning of the bathrooms, halls, kitchen, and living spaces. Those bathrooms are really really icky. I think cleaning - especially for your peers - wouldn’t be fun; hopefully those harvard kids do better than these frat boys.
The intention of the federal work study program is twofold.
Federal Work-Study provides part-time jobs for undergraduate and graduate students with financial need, allowing them to earn money to help pay education expenses.
The program encourages community service work and work related to the student’s course of study.
Work study always meant a guaranteed on-campus job as part of a financial aid package. Nothing to do with learning. I never had it but know the bathroom cleaning was one of those work study jobs on weekends for someone on my floor. I worked food service. None of the jobs were intended as “learning experiences”- they were ways to earn money to pay for college. My summer public pool job, for all employees from life guard/WSI instructors to we aids/ticket booth workers, got to clean the locker rooms Saturday mornings. Learned how gross boys can be. All jobs are a learning experience, some make one want to finish one’s degree! I would have preferred to not need to work during the school year.
On campus work study is very convenient, before you are made uncomfortable by the idea of honest work, remember that some other "poor" person is going to the cleaning those toilets, so why not offer it as WS?
In HS I worked at a Country Club as a maintenance person which was really a glorified janitor. Also washed a few dishes and shined a few shoes. Eventually I was a waiter.
In college I was always on work study, although I didn’t totally need the money. I worked some freshman year in the dining hall. Eventually got a job at the library shelving books. On campus it was the freshmen that usually had the crap jobs and if you did have to work you quickly found better jobs.
From what I remember work study had little to nothing to do with studies. I will say I don’t think I could clean dorms of my peers. Talk about a class system. No wonder they have these ideologies when they are older.
My D, studying photography and art history, works about 10 hours a week in the campus art gallery. She gets to help put exhibits together and meet artists from all over the country. Next year, she will be curating an exhibit. It’a a good job for studying, since she just has to sit at a desk a good bit of the time.
Post #7- I always thought “work-study” needed to be part of financial aid, not jobs for those who did not qualify for fin aid. I would guess if they need more workers the jobs available for work-study would open up to others- is that what happened at your school?
College campuses employ students for a variety of different jobs. Most of the departments on my campus give preference to hiring students with Federal work study, because there is much less of a hit on their own departmental budget (hiring students without work study means the department is responsible for the full wage).
I am sure that dorm crew is not the only job available to Harvard students who have been awarded work study funds. I know a kid who had federal work study funding and worked for the Harvard Audio-Visual Services department setting up sound systems or projectors for all kinds of special events, among many other projects.
Another comment on the Harvard dorm crew, it is NOT poor kids cleaning rich kid’s rooms – it is poor kids cleaning the rooms of all the other students, rich and poor alike…
When I was in college, one of the more lucrative summer jobs through the university was cleaning the student apartments. It was not a work study job, at least not entirely, because I knew a number of full pay, well to do kids who joined the cleaning crews. It was a plum job because it paid a lot more than the flyer posting, library shelves stocking and other offerings. It kept you right near campus, you were with other students. It was flexible, as most university jobs were. There were also cafeteria jobs that were popular because it included a meal each shift you worked.
I can see however, that it can be an issue if it is a federal work study position and only those with financial need are eligible for the jobs. I know that at my school many years ago, and at my kids schools much more recently, work study jobs were not all for kids who had demonstrated need. There were the Federally subsidized positions, and then the school financial aid positions and then the ones that were open to anyone whether they on financial aid or not. All of my kids worked at those university jobs. They checked IDs at the gym, et up cleaned up after track and field and other sporting events, My one son worked at a local greasy spoon diner, frequented by a lot of student,s for weekend breakfast shifts.
Cleaning personal dorm room while the student is living in them, though, can be getting personal. That may well be a job left to outside personnel. It’s a shame though, that cleaning up after others is considered such a demeaning job. Sadly, I can understand why it is so viewed.
In college I had a very cool work-study job, working as a guide/guard in the university’s art museum.
Before college I had a rather demeaning job, cooking food for a private eating club for men at Harvard. I couldn’t enter the building through the front door, and I couldn’t enter the dining room where the food was served. By a Butler.
I don’t think it’s about work-study. I think it’s about Harvard.
I have to say having students at Harvard on work study being janitors is just in bad taste. Yes its an honest job but it definitely does nothing to close the privilege gap but rather reinforces it in a school with a populations of some of the most privileged students. I am speechless.
Not everyone can start at the top of the food chain. For some, the work study job is the first job they’ll have.
My first job was on a potato farm, picking the rocks, sticks, and rotten potatoes from a conveyor belt before the potatoes were loaded into storage shed. For less than minimum wage (farm wages). I’d have been thrilled to have been making big buck cleaning for rich people.