On February 3 Temple University in Philadelphia announced its new “Fly in 4” program.   Essentially, Temple will give 500 lower income students, or seven percent of the incoming class, a grant of $4000 if they promise not to work more than ten hours a week.

That sounds very nice, right?  Temple is a fine university.  I listen to some of their basketball games on the radio.  They are concerned for students who come from under privileged backgrounds.  That’s good. 

And they are concerned because students with fewer family resources must work to pay for their college education.  And if a student works too many hours it affects his grades.  And he will probably take longer to finish his degree—six or more years.  And that ratchets up student debt.  Huge numbers of students now graduate with loans that will handicap them for years into the future. 

It used to be, Temple says, that forty years ago a student could earn enough by working ten hours per week to pay for tuition.  Now it takes twenty-five hours to pay the bill.  College has gotten more expensive.  This is a problem many families anguish over.

So Temple’s solution is to offer these grants.   Four thousand dollars in exchange for not working more than ten hours seems like a good deal.  Who would turn that down?

But let’s think it through for a moment.  The book of Proverbs in the Bible has a different concern.   It was compiled and written by the wisest man who ever lived.  He warns, “How long will you lie down, O sluggard?  When will you arise from your sleep?   A littler sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and your poverty will come in like a vagabond, and your need like an armed man.” (Proverbs 6:9-11)

I am in favor of offering scholarships to needy or deserving students.  Many, perhaps  most, students rely on student grants to get by.  But what are we saying if we tell a student, “We’ll pay you not to work?”  It seems to me there are a couple of problems with that approach.

First, I detect here a whiff of the idea that there is something inherently unfair that some students come from under privileged families, while others come from higher income backgrounds.  Therefore we should level the playing field. Reward the poor student.  Penalize the student with more assets.   The assumption seems to be that it is OK if a middle class student has to work twenty-five hours while the poor student doesn’t have to.   (Yes, I know Temple doesn’t want any student to have to work, but that’s not the real world.)

The real problem, however, is this: College costs a whole lot more than $4000.  There are books to be bought—not cheap these days.   There is room and board and transportation.  Four thousand dollars helps, to be sure.  Where does the rest come from?  How much can one earn in ten hours a week?   Maybe, with taxes taken out, $50.00 a week? Times twenty weeks equals a thousand dollars.  Great, now you’ve got $5000.  “Fold your hands, take a little nap.”

You don’t build great people that way.   Instead, we ought to encourage a man or a woman to do whatever one must to attain his goal.  Work twenty-five hours?  Go to school in the evenings?  Take fewer classes each semester so you can work enough to pay your way?  It’s not ideal, but why is that wrong if it is necessary to gain a worthy end?

Pay a student not to work?  That’s in effect what we’re doing with ninety-nine weeks of unemployment benefits.  Perhaps Temple University, in spite of its laudatory intention, is training students for the unemployment rolls.

The Bible says, “Let [a man] labor, performing with his own hands what is good, in order that he may [not be in any need himself] and may have something to share with him who has need.” (Ephesians 4:28; I Thessalonians 4:11-12)  That’s how you raise up a great generation.

February 9, 2014

Dr. Rick Perrin is Chairman of the Board of World Reformed Fellowship and senior pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church in Cherry Hill NJ.  He writes a weekly blog called ReTHINK which may be accessed at www.rethinkingnews.wordpress.com. He may be contacted directly at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..