Marissa Brassfield
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 Universities Offer Financial Rewards for Student Activists Published: Jul 11, 09 Comments: 1 Views: 934 Students have been pushed for decades to enter college or university straight out of high school, but new initiatives from a number of top-tier institutions are actually giving students financial rewards for putting off college in favor of public service. Princeton University, for example, kicked off its Bridge Year Program fairly recently. The initiative offers a tuition-free year for students to live internationally with a host family and other Princeton students to expand their global awareness. According to the New York Times, the selected students who are putting off college to be a part of the program for 2009-2010 will be stationed in Ghana, India, Peru, or Serbia. Other notable institutions that advocate students putting off college in favor of public service are Dickinson College, which offers a $10,000/year credit towards tuition, and AmeriCorps, which offers an AmeriCorps Education Award of $4,725 for a year of volunteer service.  “The idea of deferring college for a year to study abroad, do internships, or embark on various adventures has been slowly gaining ground in the U.S. since the 1980s,” said Holly Bull, president of the Center for Interim Programs consulting service in Princeton, N.J. “We’ve seen a huge shift … to a point now where you’re beginning to see it moving into the institutions.”
In a recent survey of 300 Americans who took such “gap years,” 60 percent said it affected their choice of academic major or career, said Karl Haigler, coauthor of “The Gap-Year Advantage.” More than 90 percent started or returned to college within a year.
(thechoice.blogs.nytimes)References: princeton.edu, thechoice.blogs.nytimes Filed In: |
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