Full-Time College Students On Welfare Absorb Bashing ‘We’re Not In The Business Of Providing Four-Year Degrees’

Sixty percent of the parents receiving assistance from the state’s Jobs Program in Bannock County are full-time students.

Staff workers from local welfare offices would like to see that percentage drop.

About 50 employees throughout Region 5 met Wednesday with Gov. Phil Batt’s Welfare Reform Advisory Council to add their recommendations. The council is hearing testimony from each of the seven regions and will develop a reform plan before the Legislature meets in January.

Full-time college students took a lot of bashing.

“They’re taking advantage of the system because it’s there,” said Marla Stinger, client self-support specialist in Pocatello. “We’re not in the business of supplying four-year degrees.”

Stinger spoke mainly of the JOBS and Unemployed Parents programs.

The JOBS program trains welfare recipients on how to apply and get jobs. Unemployed Parents provides cash to two-parent families in which the breadwinner is out of work. Both programs are funded by state and federal dollars.

But Sen. Gordon Crow, R-Hayden, pointed out that a mother receiving Aid to Families funds who obtains a bachelor’s degree stands a better chance of staying off welfare.

Stinger said there are federal programs that help students get their degrees without going on welfare.

“When I was a full-time student, I worked and I got financial aid. I didn’t go get on welfare,” she said. “They’re not going to take out a student loan when they can get AFDC to pay their living expenses.”

The officers recommended students not willing to adapt their school schedules to full-time work should not be eligible for assistance.

Another suggested that all student monies be counted as income when figuring eligibility. Currently, student loans, grants and work study income are not counted.