EDITORIAL
Education is an exit off welfare highway
It's virtually impossible for a needy, single mother to juggle a job, college and raise children.
So we're proud that Hawai'i is among the enlightened states that allow single parents on welfare to get work credits through education.
Take Michele Saballa, who was featured recently in a report by Advertiser education writer Beverly Creamer. Saballa is studying full time at the University of Hawai'i to become a counselor for troubled teens.
And it's because of the Bridge to Hope program, operated by the state and UH, that Saballa can even think about cultivating a career. Saballa works on campus for eight hours a week. That salary plus welfare benefits allow her to attend college full time and take care of her three children.
Bridge to Hope has put more than 120 welfare recipients like Saballa to work on UH campuses over the past year.
But there are rumblings that the program and others like it might be sacrificed in the overhaul of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act, which expires Sept. 30.
By law, able-bodied welfare recipients must work or volunteer 32 hours a week to justify their general assistance checks. Some fear that the powers on Capitol Hill don't see education as a necessary part of welfare reform. In fact, President Bush is talking about boosting the required work week to 40 hours.
If so, that's a crying shame. Why would you not want to offer welfare recipients education as a means to better their career prospects and stay off public assistance indefinitely? The benefits so obviously outweigh the costs.
If a struggling mother uses education to pull her family out of poverty, then her children will see that it's possible and will place a greater value on education.
Time and again, statistics indicate that poverty is passed on through generations. If a culture of "welfare dependency" can be learned, so too can a culture of breaking out of that hopeless cycle. But it is simplistic to think that simply pushing people into minimum wage jobs will do the trick.
Education is the real answer toward breaking that cycle. Congress must give it a chance to do so when members take up welfare reform.
