What Other States Are Doing: Education and Training
Colorado uses TANF funds for tuition vouchers enabling recipients to attend vocational and technical colleges.
Delaware, Massachusetts, and Kentucky have placed limits on the number of hours student recipients spend working outside of the classroom.
Illinois uses state maintenance-of-effort funds to allow welfare recipients to attend two year and four year colleges. Because these are state dollars, recipients are not limited to the federal time limits and they are exempt from state limits for three years as long as they are full-time students maintaining a 2.5 GPA.
Maine Parents as Scholars Program allows 2,000 recipients to attend state technical schools full time for two or four years with no off-campus work and no time limits.
Originally, Michigan law originally allowed recipients to count only five hours of training toward meeting their 25 hour weekly work requirements. Then Oakland Community College Advanced Technology Program which requires a 30-hour per week commitment from students joined with local businesses to push for a legislative change citing high job placement of graduates. They told legislators that it was counter-productive to have welfare recipients working and in school 55 hours per week. Now welfare recipients in Michigan can meet their work requirements through full-time training for up to six months.
Missouri's welfare program, FUTURES, pays students $1,600 tuition. They also receive assistance with child care and transportation and can count time in class toward their work requirements.
In Portland and Gresham, Oregon's recipients go to college from their first day on welfare because community college staff are stationed in each office and serve as "career placement specialists." Once in an approved program of study, recipients attend classes and job-search workshops at the college for 40 hours per week which meets Oregon's full work requirements - no additional part-time job requirements to fulfill.
Utah will help pay up to two years of education and training and continue to provide food stamps and Medical for recipients who are no longer on the welfare roll. There are also no time limits for child care subsidies.
Wyoming allows recipients with prior work experience to stay in school for up to six years. They must attend college full time, and maintain a 2.0 grade point average. Student must work summers. The state sponsors the program beyond the 5 year limit by utilizing their own state money as opposed to federal money.
Source: Anthony P. Carnevale and Kathleen Reich, A Piece of the Puzzle: How States Can Use Education to Make Work Pay for Welfare Recipients, Princeton, N.J: Educational Testing Service, 2000