The term “work college” conjures up images of a place like Berea College, in Kentucky, where students work in the fields to help sustain the college. At Paul Quinn College, students also grow organic produce on campus grounds.
Unlike rural Berea, however, Paul Quinn is located in the Dallas metro area, and the farm where students grow crops was developed on what once was the school’s football field. The goalposts are still in place, as a reminder of the space’s former use.
Two years after embracing the work college model, Paul Quinn will officially join the ranks of schools such as Berea that have earned federal recognition as a work college. According to Paul Quinn President Michael Sorrell, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) notified the college via email that it had been approved for the federal work college designation on Monday morning.
As such, Paul Quinn is the first urban, historically Black institution to gain that designation, joining the ranks of the eight existing work colleges, a consortium that includes Alice Lloyd College, Berea, Blackburn College, the College of the Ozarks, Ecclesia College, Sterling College, and Warren Wilson College. An eighth school, Bethany Global University, gained federal recognition as a work college last year, but has yet to join the Work College Consortium (WCC).
All Paul Quinn students now have jobs on campus or with local businesses, after the college adopted the work college model in fall 2015. In return, students receive a significant reduction in tuition, paying a total of $14,500 if they chose to live on campus. Students living off campus pay even less.
The goal is to reduce the debt burden for graduates, Sorrell said. “You can graduate with less than $10,000 in debt,” he explained. Since approximately 80 percent of Paul Quinn students are Pell Grant eligible, many receive federal dollars that help reduce the cost of tuition even further.
“We think the idea of telling people who grew up in underresourced and poverty stricken communities that their way out is through (college) debt is ridiculous,” Sorrell commented.
