Boston's Northeastern University has 38,000 full-and part-time students, which makes it just about the largest private university in the U.S., but it has long been overshadowed by the fame of such neighbors as Harvard and M.I.T. Lately, however, many educators have come to look on Northeastern's work-study program as an answer to their own institutions' financial troubles. The reason: by adopting the Northeastern system, a college can increase its enrollment by 40% without having to hire new faculty or constructing new buildings.
The system works this way: after a conventional freshman year, a student alternates a semester of classroom learning with a semester of work related to his studies. A chemistry major may work as a laboratory technician, for example, a business major as a salesman, or a mathematics major as a computer programmer. Called "cooperative education" (or "co-op") because it enlists the participation of 1,600 Boston-area employers, the Northeastern system requires five years for a degree. But enthusiasts say that it makes college more "relevant" by offering students a practical goal for their studies, gives them a head start on their careers and enables youngsters from poor families to earn a college education. Northeastern estimates that about two-thirds of its 9,283 undergraduate co-op students work their way through college (tuition: $775 per quarter) thanks to co-op jobs paying from $70 to $150 a week.
Soil on Hands. Northeastern was among the pioneers of the co-op plan back in 1909, but in the next three decades only 25 other schools followed its lead. Since 1962, however, colleges like Wilberforce University in Ohio, Beloit College in Wisconsin and Pasadena City College in California have flocked to the plan, both for its inherent educational advantages and for its solutions to problems of space and cost. Today, more than 300 institutions have begun cooperative education. An estimated 300 more are considering the step—spurred on by a White House recommendation that $10.8 million in startup grants be voted by Congress. Last month some 250 businessmen and educators met near Boston for a crash course on the benefits of the co-op system. Willard Wirtz, former Secretary of Labor and now president of the Manpower Institute, summed up the theory this way: "The learning and work functions—with love—seem to me to involve life's identifiable values. None is meaningful without the others." Says Northeastern's Dean of Co-op Education Roy L. Wooldridge: "For years Northeastern labored in the vineyard, looked down on by other schools because we got soil on our hands. Suddenly, a lot of people want some soil in their ivory towers."
Co-op education is not equally suited to everyone. Some of Northeastern's 2,240 liberal arts students have a hard time finding jobs that relate directly to studies in philosophy or literature. Gary Esposito, a political science major, spent his most recent co-op term as a bank clerk ("It was that or nothing," he says). Some professors complain that their students place too much emphasis on vocational training. As one critic put it, "the sociology majors all want to become social workers."