CONGRESSIONAL Republicans managed to get the U.S. House of Representatives to pass a bill, H.R. 4737, which would force many welfare recipients to work more hours a week, and spend less time getting an education. This bill is a step in the wrong direction. Congress should ease education restrictions on welfare, not tighten them, as this bill does.
The current welfare legislation in this country severely hampers welfare recipients' ability to get a college degree. This bill would limit education that can count toward work hours required to receive welfare benefits to only technical or vocational training. This policy is myopic and only handicaps welfare recipients' efforts to get a college education in order to improve their job prospects. This decreases the chance that welfare recipients will achieve economic independence, which hurts the country because it means that it will have to continue funding payments to welfare recipients.
According to the current welfare law that was passed in 1996, a welfare recipient can receive education, which fulfills the welfare work requirement by doing only technical or vocational training. The cap on the amount of time that a welfare recipient can get credit for technical or vocational training is one year. Under HR 4737, the maximum amount of time for this education would decrease to 4 months every two years. As a result, welfare recipients still cannot get a college degree, and on top of that, cannot get as much technical or vocational training as they could under the old law.
According to the June 21 Chronicle of Higher Education article, "In Debate over Welfare Reform, Work Trumps Education," college lobbyists have been trying to persuade Senate leaders to ease, not toughen current restrictions on education. These lobbyists are entirely correct; restrictions on education for welfare recipients must be curtailed to help these people get better jobs.
One reason for the bill's emphasis on work rather than education is simply politics. David S. Baime, vice president for government relations at the American Association of Community Colleges, told The Chronicle, "legislators are overly seduced by the notion of requiring more and more work from welfare recipients. There's a lot of political appeal in being 'tough' on welfare recipients." Playing politics with welfare hurts welfare recipients first off, not to mention the fact that it might keep more people in the welfare system.
As almost everyone seems to have figured out by now, a college degree makes people more attractive to potential employers. But current welfare legislation as well as HR 4737 effectively tells welfare recipients that they cannot get a college degree and should stick to jobs that do not require one. Women are hurt most by this policy because the majority of welfare recipients are single mothers. Leslie R. Wolf, president of the Center for Women Policy Studies, told The Chronicle that legislation with a strong emphasis on work rather than education implies that "women who are poor are poor because they are bad." The legislation tells these women that they cannot improve themselves through higher education and this is not the message the government should be sending.
Discouraging higher education for welfare recipients forces the government to continue providing support to welfare recipients, who are denied the chance to educate themselves and become more self-sufficient. In a letter to the Senate Finance Committee in May, the American Council on Education, on behalf of a number of other education associations, said, "one of the surest ways to economic security and self-sufficiency for [welfare] recipients is through higher education." By taking away any practical opportunity for a welfare recipient to get higher education, the government also makes it more likely that the person will not be able to get a better job, that he'll remain in poverty, and thus continue to have to be partially supported by welfare.
Now the bill will go to the Senate where a number of compromises and alternatives already are being proposed. The Senate must stop this bill and ease restrictions on welfare recipients' ability to receive an education. The bill as it currently stands would hurt welfare recipients' opportunities to achieve economic independence. That would hurt not only these welfare recipients, but also the taxpayers who pay for welfare, a true lose-lose situation.
(Harris Freier is a Cavalier Daily columnist. He can be reached at hfreier@cavalierdaily.com.)
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