§12561a Campuses of Service

Summary

Each year the Corporation, after talking with the Secretary of Education, can pick up to 25 colleges or universities to be called Campuses of Service. To be considered, a school must apply to its State Commission for that fiscal year. The application must include basic facts about recent service-learning courses and how many students took them; the share of students doing community service, the quality of that work, and average time spent; the share of federal work-study money used to pay students doing community service and what the school does to offer those jobs; optional information on how many graduates go into public service jobs; and any programs the school has to encourage public service careers. Each State Commission may nominate up to 3 schools for the Corporation to choose from: at most one 4-year public school, one 4-year private school, and one 2-year school. The Corporation will name up to 25 from those nominations and will try to include different types of schools. Designated campuses can get money set aside for Campuses of Service to create or share service-learning models and best practices. To receive funds, a campus must give the Corporation a plan for how it will use the money. The Corporation decides how to split the funds based on student numbers, the plan’s quality and scope, and the school’s current efforts to help students pursue public service.