New York City To Offer More Summer Job Opportunities To High School Students

Roughly 110,000 high school students in New York City could soon land longer and more stable summer jobs. A new proposal by a New York-based nonprofit group aims to make summer jobs more accessible to every high school student who wants to have one.

More Meaningful Employment For Students

According to an online paper published by The Community Service Society, the new program would mandate placement organizations to work hand-in-hand with schools to create job opportunities that are highly relevant and meaningful to high school students. Furthermore, in-depth preparations and screenings would be done months in advance so that students can transition smoothly from school to work life.

The new program, which would cover 20 of the city's high schools, is expected to cost around 242 million. New York City won't have to shoulder all the expenses as it would be receiving sufficient financial support from the state and federal governments.

The City's Current Program Has Underperformed

The New York Times reported that job opportunities for high school students took a dip in the late 1990s. During that time, Congress had revamped a long-standing program which initially provided federally funded summer jobs to over 500,000 high school students.

Under the current program, that figure has been reduced to 55,000 high school students with summer jobs as New York City shoulders most of the expenses. This results in slow, and sometimes insufficient, appropriation of funds.

Unknown Budget

In addition, placement organizations are often unaware of how much money they'll be working with. Companies usually receive the funding just days before the program starts. As a consequence, screenings are done in haste, causing high school students to be thrust into ill-fitting jobs.

There's also no assurance, under the present setup, that high school students can participate in the program for two straight years. This means many young people would miss out on the advantages of having several years of summer work experience.

As per Education World, 20 percent of high school students in the US have a hard time landing summer jobs, despite badly wanting one. If implemented at all, the new proposal by The Community Service Society would undoubtedly encourage more young people to get off the couch and work, work, work.