Benefits Run Out Before Classes Gu Senior Says Welfare System Is Punishing Her For Seeking A Degree

The routine stress of college is minute compared with the strain the state’s new welfare system can put on students such as Gonzaga University senior Tonia Johnson.

The 25-year-old special education major has been in college four years, helped by scholarships, food stamps, monthly state payments and child-care assistance for her 5-year-old daughter, Lauryn.

But under the job-focused rules of WorkFirst, the state no longer is willing to pick up the tab for the child-care costs of student welfare recipients unless they’re enrolled in a vocational program that takes 12 months or less to complete.

These short job-focused courses are the quickest paths to employment, WorkFirst administrators say.

“If they are working and off assistance, then that opens up further options for people to choose education,” said Mike Masten, director of WorkFirst for the state. Funneling people into jobs, however, is the first priority, he said.

Students on welfare who are enrolled in multiple-year college programs will have to find other ways to cover their child-care expenses as of June unless they’re graduating by July.

Johnson will not graduate by July. In fact, she’ll be student-teaching full time this fall. She said she’s confident, however, that the state still will pay for Lauryn’s after-kindergarten care - she’ll appeal if she has to, she said.

Her reasons for an exemption are that student teaching is a community service and her prospects for landing a job - which is what the state wants - are good, she said.

“I’m like the epitome of what the state is begging for right now as far as education goes,” said Johnson, who’s studying education tailored for troubled kids.

Even though WorkFirst is only a few months old, some lawmakers have sought changes during the current legislative session.

A bill sponsored by Sens. Julia Patterson, D-SeaTac, and Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, would have extended child-care assistance to students in two-year programs. The bill died in committee along with most other bills dealing with child care.

Patterson said a two-year program is as far as a child-care subsidy for students should go.

“I don’t think the taxpayers are willing to pay for a four-year education,” she said. “I think they’re willing to help them get on their feet for a decent-wage job.”

Another WorkFirst requirement is aimed at all student welfare recipients. They now must work a minimum of 20 hours a week while in school to receive their basic welfare checks. The requirement does not apply to food stamps and subsidized medical insurance, however.

The initial effects of welfare reform have students and college administrators worried - worried about what will happen to students in the middle of programs, worried about those contemplating enrolling in school.

The needs being carved out by WorkFirst at Eastern Washington University, where 377 students receive some kind of state assistance, have captured the attention of students and administrators.

“It’s pretty grim,” said Laurel Kearns, coordinator of an EWU program that helps students with child care, welfare and housing concerns.

Kearns, who meets with two or three students a day, said she has talked with mothers who feel their educational opportunities are being reined in by welfare requirements.

“What I’ve seen is people dig in and let go of their welfare benefits and struggle some other way,” she said.

Johnson may become one of those students. Even if her child-care assistance is severed, the GU student said, she’ll finish school - if it means moving back in with her parents or picking up a fast-food job. But she acknowledges that surviving without child-care help is not “reality” for some students.

Johnson said she loves her field and needs a four-year education to be a certified teacher.

For some students, however, the desire for an education is being replaced with the necessity of finding a job in order to hang onto benefits, Kearns said.

Terry Covey, Eastern Washington program manager for WorkFirst, said the system is not a mandate to work only.

“We’re not saying you can’t go to school; we’re saying these are requirements you must meet to receive your benefits,” he said.

But the requirements, said third-year EWU criminal justice student Alison Probert, make it almost impossible to go to school.

Probert’s child-care benefits were revoked because she isn’t working the required 20 hours a week. Financial aid covers her child-care costs, but she’s afraid her cash grant will be cut if she doesn’t start working.

Working 20 hours is physically impossible, she said, because of her tight schedule. She can’t take fewer credits to free up time to work because school housing and financial aid depend on her maintaining a 12-credit load, she said.

“The people who are catching it are the people who were already working hard to get out of the system,” she said.

Although welfare reform doesn’t appear to be affecting a large number of Gonzaga students, the university is willing to help students who need it, said Sue Jarvis, dean of financial services.

Students facing the cutoff for childcare assistance may have other avenues to cover those expenses, she said. Students can take out loans, for example, to include the costs of child care.

Welfare recipients not yet attending school but thinking about it also feel constrained by welfare requirements, said Julie Graham, co-chairwoman of Voices for Opportunity, Income, Child Care, Education and Support, a program of the Greater Spokane Coalition Against Poverty.

“People feel like their opportunities have been taken away and that they’ll be stuck in a low-paying job with no options,” she said. “And those motivated to get a four-year degree feel like their dreams are being taken away.”

Graham received welfare benefits, including child care, while attending EWU. She graduated in 1995 with a public communications degree and said she wouldn’t be qualified for her job working for Spokane Neighborhood Action Programs without it.

“People who are educated get better jobs, and if people are truly wanting welfare mothers to get off welfare, then education is the best way to do that,” she said.

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