P4P: An Overview

All social work students must be paid for their field work.

The University of Michigan and SSW can lead the way.  

P4P wants to work with them to make it happen.

*Written by members of Payment for Placements (P4P) at the University of Michigan.

Executive Summary

Section One: The Ethics of Payment and Nonpayment

• Requiring students to work 16-24 hours per week for free creates unnecessary financial barriers that prevent low-SES people and people of color from joining the social work profession.

• Unpaid field work contributes to the nationwide shortage of behavioral health professionals, depriving already-underserved clients of high-quality services.

• Paying students for their field work would reduce rates of burnout, leading to better client outcomes in both the immediate and longer term.

Section Two: Efforts Underway Across the Country  

• As of July 6th, 2022, social work students from 23 different schools have started chapters of P4P, with students from dozens more who are interested.

• State NASW chapters, state legislatures, and national advocacy organizations are starting to recognize the value of P4P in addressing social worker shortages.  

Section Three: Looking Within the House  

• The University of Michigan Law School ensures that no law student is financially penalized during their internships for choosing to work in public interest law. 

• The 60% of Ford School of Public Policy students whose internships are not paid by their employer are given stipends.  The Ford School coordinates this process.

• All other students with degree-required field placements or internships deserve to be paid.  P4P encourages these schools’ students to take a stand.

Section Four: Our Unique Opportunity

• The School of Social Work is uniquely positioned to be a national leader.  They can catalyze the process that will result in all social work students having P4P.

• The School of Social Work can and and must work with field sites, donors, and legislators to deliver stipends to as many of its students as possible.  

• The University’s $5.6 billion in unrestricted endowment funds are more than enough to give stipends to students who are not covered by the above strategies.  

Section Five: P4P’s Payment Plan for UM MSW Students  

• A new line item in University’s annual allocation for the SSW would cover both the stipends and new administrative costs.  Said line item would guarantee stipends to all social work students who are not given one through a state workforce retention program, their field site, or the SSW field fund.  

• Field sites are not the payors of first resort.  Sites that want to pay their students can opt-in to doing so, as long as they pay them at or above a minimum standard.

• Payment would be disbursed in biweekly increments during students’ time in field.  The biweekly amount would be tailored to the number of field hours that are expected of students in a given semester.  

• An equivalent of $20 per hour is a reasonable rate.

Section One: The Ethics of Payment and Nonpayment

Let us begin by acknowledging that social workers are not in it for the money.  Rather, people join the profession and social work students begin their studies out of a desire to contribute to their communities.  Absent this motive, few students would be content to pursue a Masters degree whose graduates’ median salary ranges between $40,000 and $43,840. Put another way, social work students are motivated by a desire to realize the Ethical Principles of the NASW.

It is by these standards that we judge the status quo of degree-required field work, in which eighty-eight percent of MSW students at the University of Michigan are unpaid for their field work, to be unethical.  Specifically, we believe this state of affairs violates the NASW’s commitment to social justice.

Social Justice: The Student and Professional Side

To speak to social justice, we first cite the endemic presence of burnout within the field of social work.  Burnout leads to high on-the-job stress and turnover rates among social workers, which worsens outcomes for the clients whom they serve.  Doing everything possible to prevent burnout, in other words, is key to delivering the best quality of services to people in need.  To do this, we must acknowledge an open secret among social workers: that low pay is a major driver of burnout.  Low pay even causes some MSW-holders to leave the profession altogether; those who remain in the field, in turn, are saddled with higher caseloads and even more burnout.    

We must also acknowledge the toll that financial insecurity visits upon graduate students in general.  Per the Graduate Employees’ Organization’s (GEO) 2021 survey of 1,100 University of Michigan graduate students, unaffordable housing, food insecurity, and lack of access to health care are the daily reality for many in this population.  Everyone is entitled to these basic social goods; training to be a social worker should not interfere with one’s access to them.   

The time is long overdue for MSW students to advocate for themselves and reject the refrain that their work is “about the outcome, not the income.”  Their work is, and should, be about both.  The experience of not being paid for their field work, however, conditions social work students into accepting unjust levels of compensation as a fact of life.  With little choice but to engage in degree-required field work without pay, it is difficult to later resist the pressure to “put up or shut up” with respect to one’s rate of pay.  Being paid for field work, conversely, would empower social workers to push for equitable pay rates, which would translate to less burnout and better client outcomes.  

Additionally, the status quo discriminates against current and prospective students of low socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds.  It is not uncommon for these students to endure financial stress - due, perhaps, to choosing between groceries and bills, working full-time or part-time in addition to their classwork and field work, or taking out additional thousands of dollars in loans - during their time in the MSW program.  That this occurs at the University of Michigan despite the SSW affording generous scholarships to many low-income students speaks to the need for a consistent income stream for the duration of these students’ times in the program.  The same applies to the low-SES person who, concluding that they cannot afford to spend 16-24 hours per week in an unpaid placement, never applies to the program in the first place.  

We at Payment for Placements are also concerned with the larger issue of racial inequity in higher education. The School of Social Work’s commitment to anti-racism must be evident not only in its curriculum, but also in its admissions and enrollment figures.  As the larger University’s Black enrollment now lies under 4%, the “lowest point since the initial Black Action Movement protests during the early 1970s”, the School of Social Work can and must take timely action to help reverse this grim trend.  The entire University community will benefit from the SSW’s student body becoming more socioeconomically diverse.   

Social Justice: The Client Side

It is a no-brainer that guaranteeing paid social work placements would entice more people to study social work.  But how would this further social justice for the populations whom social workers serve?  In short, guaranteeing Payment for Placements would go a long way towards addressing the state of Michigan’s glaring shortage of mental health workers, particularly for low-income populations.  

According to data from the federal Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), the entirety of 38 Michigan counties, including Kalamazoo and Genesee Counties, are designated as Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSAs) in the domain of mental health.  The same can be said for service areas comprising significant swaths of Macomb, Oakland, and Wayne Counties.   And this lack of mental health workers, per the HRSA, is particularly pronounced for Federally Qualified Health Centers, Indian Health Service centers, and other facilities which serve low-income populations.  These shocking statistics corroborate recent local reporting on shortages of mental health workers and child welfare workers.  As a consequence of these shortages, the Michigan Health Endowment Fund found that 80 percent of all Michiganders with a substance use disorder and 38 percent of Michiganders with another mental illness did not receive any treatment in 2019.   

Creative solutions need to be deployed as soon as possible in order to make up for the shortfall; and as social workers have long made up the plurality of the state’s mental health workforce, these solutions must make it easier for more Michiganders to become social workers.  If all social work students at the University of Michigan were guaranteed payment for their field work, then training to enter the mental health field through this route would immediately become a less risky proposition.  With more of its students attending and graduating from social work programs, the state of Michigan would be put on the path to having an adequately staffed mental health workforce.  Significantly more clients would receive the treatment they need, and socioeconomic gaps in access to mental health care would narrow.   

And considering the general homogeneity of the social work profession - it is still, by and large, a white-dominated field serving low-income people of color - paying field students is one step in the many that still need to be taken to desegregate the field. If prospective students knew they would be receiving a stipend during their time in field, then thousands of new, socioeconomically diverse applicants would feel empowered to apply to the University of Michigan’s program.  A more diverse applicant pool will mean a more diverse student body, which will ultimately improve the diversity of the social work workforce in southeast Michigan. Compared to previous cohorts, successive generations of social work graduates will be better at providing culturally competent services to our state’s most vulnerable populations.  Prospective clients, in turn, would have more options for seeking the assistance of social workers whose stories sound like theirs.  By ensuring that all social work students are paid for their field work, the University of Michigan will strengthen its commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. 

Section Two: Efforts Underway Across the Country

The University of Michigan chapter of P4P is hardly the first organization to advocate for social work students being paid for their field work.  Between social work students at other universities, state NASW chapters, advocacy organizations, and more, the movement is growing stronger every day.  Below are just some examples of the institutions that have expressed support for paying field students equitably.  

Social Work Students at Universities Across the Country 

State Overview: California

State Senators in California have introduced SB 968, which would provide yearly stipends of up to $18,500 for social work students who commit to working in a publicly-funded behavioral health setting for a minimum number of years after graduation.  The San Diego State University P4P chapter, which also published an op-ed in the San Diego Union Tribune, consulted with the legislative director of one of the bill’s sponsors.

The SDSU chapter of P4P also met recently with the Dean of their School of Social Work, who committed to implementing changes to the school’s field education program by the fall 2022. 

State Overview: Florida

Support for P4P exists within the Board of Directors of the FL-NASW.  The head of the subcommittee of the FL-NASW which is responsible for field education issues endorsed P4P and has forwarded information on P4P to students at every school of social work in the state.  Members of this subcommittee have met with the FL-NASW’s lobbyist to begin drafting legislation providing stipends to social work students.  Additionally, the statewide consortium which oversees field education in Florida has expressed support for P4P.

State Overview: Iowa

In partnership with each of the state’s accredited social work programs, the NASW-IA has recently formed a Paid Practicum Group chaired by the President of their chapter.  Thus far, the working group has researched American medical apprenticeships and the United Kingdom’s apprenticeship programs for social workers as possible models to emulate throughout the state.

State Overview: Michigan

The MI-NASW recognizes that economic security is a top concern of the state’s social workers and social work students.  To this end, it has requested that the State of Michigan allocate $30.5 million for a behavioral health workforce student recruitment fund, $3 million for behavioral health workforce sign-on bonuses, and $10 million for a student loan repayment program for behavioral health workers.

The MI-NASW also share’s P4P’s conviction that providing stipends to social work students would help to address shortages in the state’s behavioral health workforce.  We are grateful for the MI-NASW’s impassioned advocacy on behalf of SB 1012 and HB 6020, bills which would give stipends to social work students whose field placements are in public schools, and budget amendments submitted by Representative Felicia Brabec which would give stipends to social work students who agree to work in the public behavioral health field after graduation.

State Overview: Ohio

The OH-NASW has “developed a project to raise awareness about the issue of unpaid field practicums”.  In the OH-NASW’s own words, the project seeks to  “advocate for a Great Investment into social work by seeking to develop and sustain paid field practicum opportunities for social work students”.  The chapter has also held student roundtables, conducted a survey, and launched a social media campaign related to unpaid field work.

State Overview: Texas

UT Austin FED UP, the campus’ P4P chapter, met recently with the Executive Director of the TX-NASW.  The Director is supportive of P4P and is moving for the state chapter to endorse the movement. 

After meeting with FED UP, the TX-NASW committed to organizing an event in August of 2022 in which schools of social work from across the state will be invited to learn about P4P.  The TX-NASW is also moving to convene a statewide workgroup made up of faculty, school administrators, and students to draft and advocate for legislation that would provide students with stipends.

Likely Allies: Pay Our Interns

The co-chairs of P4P met on February 9th, 2022 with the Executive Director and other senior leadership of Pay Our Interns (POI), the nation’s leading organization “fighting to ensure all students have equitable access to professional career paths through the implementation of paid internships countrywide.”  The organization previously “convinced Congress to allocate $48 million for lawmakers to pay their interns.”  POI released a statement on February 11th, 2022 expressing support for P4P and its goals.  It will also be interviewing P4P leaders and other University of Michigan MSW students for its upcoming “MSW Stories” series.

A Note on the CSWE

We acknowledge that, at present, the Council on Social Work Education’s standards do not recommend that social work students be paid for their field work.  However, recent developments show that the CSWE is willing to amend its policies as paid field placements are concerned.  In section 3.3.7 of the most recent draft of its 2022 Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards, the CSWE preserves the pandemic-era rule change that has allowed students to count their paid employment in the social work field as their field placement.  In the immediate term, the University of Michigan School of Social Work and its students should advocate for the rule change being made permanent.  And in the longer term, the CSWE’s apparent intention to preserve the rule change gives us hope that it will one day implement even broader changes to its standards.     

Section Three: Looking Within the House

One does not have to look far for examples of students being paid for their degree-required field placements or internships.  In fact, we only need to look one block down South University Avenue at the University of Michigan Law School, and a few blocks farther at the Ford School of Public Policy.  Both schools’ payment programs demonstrate that paying students for their degree-required work is doable. 

The University of Michigan Law School

During their degree-required summer internships, law students at the University of Michigan who have chosen to intern for a private law firm are typically paid a stipend by the firm itself.  Public interest law firms and government agencies, however, often do not have enough revenue to pay their legal interns, just as many social work field sites report not having the revenue to pay their field students.  Thankfully, the Law School maintains funding programs which ensure that no law student, whether in their first or second year of the program, pays a financial penalty for devoting their labor to the public interest.     

University of Michigan 1L students pursuing internships in public service are eligible for $6,500 competitive grants, 30 of which were awarded in 2021.  This program’s revenue comes from fundraising conducted (but not paid) by law students themselves. Meanwhile, when 2L students decide to take internships in a government or public interest organization, the law school will provide a summer stipend of up to $6,500.  The latter program receives its funding from the University’s annual allocation to the Law School for financial aid, which totaled $17,431,000 for the 2021-2022 fiscal year.  The 2L model serves as an example of how the School of Social Work, with additional funding from the University, can play a similar role by ensuring an income for students whose field agencies cannot afford to pay them.

The Ford School of Public Policy

Students pursuing a Masters in Public Policy at the Ford School must also complete a summer internship, and only 40% of MPP students are paid by their internship site.  The remaining 60% of students pursuing their Masters in Public Policy receive some form of funding from a source other than the internship site itself, such as alumni donations to the Ford School, private scholarships, and public grants.  In this model, finding internship funding to supplement students’ needs is a collaborative effort between the Ford School, the student’s internship site, and donors.  By collaborating with field sites (regardless of their ability to pay), donors, and other funding sources, the School of Social Work is fully capable of replicating such a model for its own students.  

Other University of Michigan Professional Schools

The Payment for Placements team acknowledges that many students in other University of Michigan programs are also not paid for their degree-required field work or internships.  For instance, Masters students in the School of Education’s k-12 teacher preparation track must work as a student teacher without pay for the duration of their time in the program.  We condemn the lack of payment for these students' work on the same basis that we condemn our own.  It is perhaps not surprising that students in education and social work, both seen as traditionally “feminine” forms of work, are tacitly expected to engage in field work for free.  

For these reasons we strongly encourage our colleagues in the Masters of Education program, as well as all other students whose degree-required work is unpaid, to demand they be paid for their work.  In fact, the leaders of P4P have begun meeting with Masters of Education students to begin their own Payment for Placements campaign.  We look forward to assisting and advising their campaign.  

For two main reasons, we believe that it would not be in the best interest of any student (MSW or otherwise) for MSW students to try leading organizing efforts for other programs’ students.  The first is that other programs’ students know their schools, program structures, student bodies, and field sites better than we ever could.  Attempting to unilaterally impose the P4P model upon other programs would prove both patronizing and ineffective.  The School of Social Work’s student body does not have a monopoly on talented organizers; we trust that students in other programs will be capable of leading themselves should they decide to pursue similar goals as us.  

Additionally, we are acutely aware that preprofessional students of all kinds are watching intently as we, the oldest and most influential P4P chapter, act as a proof-of-concept.  Waiting to advocate for ourselves until every school of social work across the nation, or every preprofessional school in the University of Michigan system, is equally well-situated is a surefire recipe for stagnation.  To show others that these efforts are worth mounting, someone has to go first.  Luckily, the University of Michigan and the School of Social Work are eminently capable of blazing this trail.  

Section Four: Our Unique Opportunity

We define the University of Michigan and the School of Social Work as two distinct entities in the section below because they have two distinct roles to play in realizing Payment for Placements.  Let us address their respective roles one at a time.

The Role of the University

The University is financially capable of ensuring that all of its MSW students are paid for their field work; it can and must do for MSW students what the School of Social Work cannot do on its own.  The School of Social Work itself, in one important divergence from the Law School and School of Public Policy, is not as well-situated to provide stipends in-house.  The reasons for this is simple: graduates of MSW programs are less likely than graduates of MPP and JD programs to earn a salary which allows them to donate to their alma maters in significant quantities.  While we applaud the School of Social Work’s recent decision to create a field stipend fund which alumni can give to, we recognize that this fund will never equal the stipend funds which the Law School and Ford School maintain.

So were P4P to demand that the SSW pay field students without first receiving additional funding, we would effectively be demanding that the School make one of two unenviable choices: either make drastic cuts to financial aid or hike its tuition.  Either decision would entirely defeat the purpose of P4P.  Were our field sites mandated to pay their students, similarly, many would have no choice but to sever ties with the SSW.

However, the broader University of Michigan is an eminently well-resourced institution that can fund this effort.  Through the funding plan detailed later in this document, there need not be any sacrifices made to financial aid for SSW students or to the SSW’s partnerships with community-based field sites.

The University of Michigan’s $17.1 billion endowment includes $5.6 billion in unrestricted funds that have not been earmarked for any particular purpose.  In other words, this $5.6 billion can be drawn down at the discretion of the Provost for whatever purpose the University chooses.  

While the University has, to their credit, utilized some of these reserve funds, it draws upon its unrestricted endowment funds to an inadequate degree.  It beggars belief to suggest that the University is already drawing down as much of its unrestricted endowment funds as it can possibly bear.  In the wake of the Great Recession, the Board of Regents voted in 2010 to reduce the minimum percentage of the endowment’s returns to be spent in a given fiscal year from 5.0% to 4.5%.  Since then, through the economic recovery of the 2010s and the endowment’s precipitous 40% growth during the last fiscal year, the Board of Regents have yet to vote to return the percentage to its pre-Recession level.  

This is all to say that the University can afford, using its unrestricted endowment funds, to guarantee stipends for any MSW student who is not already provided one by their field site, the SSW field fund, or the state of Michigan.  If the University Provost decided to pay an equivalent of $20 an hour to everyone in the Fall 2022 MSW cohort for our 912 required field hours, the percentage of total endowment funds withdrawn this year would equal 4.982%, still short of the pre-Recession yearly rate.  Crucially, the University’s unrestricted endowment funds are large enough that such a new allocation would not jeopardize any other line items, such as financial aid, which are sourced from it; were this the case, P4P would not be making this ask of the University.  From a fiscal standpoint, paying University of Michigan MSW students for their field work has never been more feasible.

Of course, the act of persuading the Provost to authorize this disbursement is easier said than done.  This will take advocacy that P4P is hard-pressed to do on its own.  This is where the School of Social Work as an entity comes in: as the high-profile power broker between the University and its students. 

The Role of the School of Social Work

Let us say this in no uncertain terms: the leaders of P4P are asking for the help of SSW administrators in bringing our concerns to the broader University leadership.  While we trust that University leadership will come to engage with us in good faith, there is no use denying that this process will come to pass more quickly with the SSW administration as our advocate.  This advocacy could be as simple as them introducing the Provost to P4P via a friendly email, or as involved as us co-presenting to their office.  We prefer to make progress in conjunction with SSW administrators, not in spite of them.    

The School of Social Work itself would stand to benefit from facilitating the Provost’s decision that guarantees Payment for Placements.  In the immediate term, the SSW and its leadership would be credited for much of the positive press that would come the University of Michigan’s way; the P4P team would make sure of it.  And in the long term, being the first MSW program of its size to guarantee paid field placements would permanently put to rest any debate over which school of social work is the nation’s best - not just in the eyes of peer universities, but in the experiences of students.  On top of its prowess in research and instruction, the SSW would attain nationwide recognition as a program that supports low-SES students by removing the financial barriers that have kept many of them from entering the field of social work. 

It would also further solidify the School’s reputation as a catalyst for positive change.  Given the School’s outsized influence and the University of Michigan’s endowment, no other school of social work is better suited to lead the charge in guaranteeing Payment for Placements.  After witnessing the University of Michigan SSW reap the benefits of P4P, other prestigious schools of social work, with similarly-large unrestricted endowment sizes, might follow suit.  Columbia University and Boston University, whose MSW students have also established P4P chapters, come to mind.  In turn, state governments will be motivated to maintain the competitiveness of their less-wealthy schools by funding P4P for their students directly out of state coffers.  The SSW administrators who partner with P4P at the University of Michigan will go down in the annals of social work history as having played a key role in making Payment for Placements par for the course.

Section Five: P4P’s Payment Plan for UM MSW Students

This section briefly describes how P4P’s preferred payment plan would operate. 

What to Call the Payments

P4P believes these payments should be officially called “stipends” - or more precisely, “stipends paid out in biweekly increments”.  Using this term will steer us clear of debates over terminology that would delay getting payments into student’ bank accounts.  Additionally, the Law School and School of Public Policy both use the term “stipend” to describe similar programs which compensate students for degree-required internships.

Who Pays?

The University of Michigan, as detailed above, is capable of financing the entirety of Payment for Placements via its unrestricted endowment funds.  As such, we believe that a new SSW line item created by these unrestricted funds should be the payor of first resort.  Students that are not afforded a stipend by a state apprenticeship program, their own field site, or the SSW Field Fund should be given one via this line item.  This policy should apply both to field sites which themselves are part of the University of Michigan system, such as Poverty Solutions, and those which are independent from it.

Of course, a small number of field sites, some freestanding and some part of the University of Michigan system, already pay their field students.  Under P4P’s plan, all field sites would have the option to opt-in to paying their students, provided that they pay them at a rate that at least equals the University’s compensation rate (which is specified below).  Expecting field sites to be the payors of first resort, and requiring them to submit documentation demonstrating financial need in order for the University to instead pay their students, would likely precipitate the loss of many field sites.  For this same reason, P4P’s payment plan does not permit cost-sharing between the University and field sites; in effect,only the field sites that are manifestly willing and able to pay their students would do so.        

Total Cost of the Program

Given the above-average cost of living in Ann Arbor, the fact that many social work students are responsible for dependent family members, and our confidence in the university’s ability to provide compensation, a just payment rate for social work students in field is an equivalent of $20 per hour.  This rate equals the minimum wage supported by President Biden, although it still does not meet what the minimum wage would be were it indexed to productivity growth over the past 70 years; this figure is $24.18.  If the University of Michigan were to compensate every one of the 438 students in the 2022 cohort for 912 hours of field work, the University would pay these students a total of $7.989,120 for the duration of their time in the MSW program.  This figure is an overestimate, as some students (e.g. MicroMasters) students’ field hour requirements are lower than those of conventional 13-month and 16-month students.  Moreover, the topline figure would be further reduced by the subtraction of students who are already given stipends from other sources.  

It is also noteworthy that the School of Social Work’s tuition, at approximately $16,000 per semester for sixteen-month, in-state students, would still supersede total payments for field – $18,240 for each student required to work 912 hours in field.  To offset future increases in the cost of living, payments should be fixed at an equivalent to $20 per hour for the 2022 fiscal year and be thenceforth indexed to inflation.

 A new line item in University’s annual allocation to the SSW, totaling $8.25 million per year, would cover both the payments and new administrative costs.  $8 million of this line item would fund the payments; this portion would be called the Payment for Placements Fund.  The remaining $250,000 would go towards additional staff, training, and supplies for the Office of Field Education (OFE) and the Office of Student Services and Enrolment Management (OSSEM).  The latter figure is a tentative estimate which will almost certainly be revised over the course of the task force’s work.  This allocation, drawn from the University’s unrestricted endowment funds, would increase the annual percentage of the University’s endowment that is drawn down from 4.5% to at most 4.982%, (assuming, safely, that the endowment will keep growing).  

Given that a small number of field sites might opt-in to paying their field students, it is highly unlikely that, for instance, all $7,989,120 allocated to the P4P team’s cohort will end up being distributed to the cohort.  These leftover funds should be reallocated to the P4P Fund for the subsequent cohort, and the amount drawn from endowment funds from this cohort should be cut by a corresponding figure, if the former action is allowed under the University’s Standard Practice Guide (SPG) policies.  The SPG does not appear to explicitly proscribe endowment funds disbursed for a given fiscal year from being used for the same purpose in a subsequent year.  

In effect, the University would be drawing fewer than $8.25 million from its endowment funds on a year-over-year basis.  To guarantee stipends to all members of the current SSW cohort, for instance, the University would not have to pay the 52 students who already receive stipends from other sources.  Instead, they would provide stipends for the cohort’s remaining 387 students, costing fewer than $7 million.   

Payment Schedule

The stipends should be paid out in biweekly increments, so that MSW students have a consistent income stream.  It would be less than optimal for students if they received their entire payment in a lump sum at the beginning of their time in field, or in three lump sums at the beginning of each semester in field.    

This biweekly increment should be tailored to the number of hours per semester that students are required to fulfill in field.  It would not make sense if the $18,240 were divided into 24 equal parcels of $760 and distributed biweekly for the duration of a student’s time in field.  Such a design would effectively overpay them when they are in field for 228 hours per semester and shortchange them when the requirement rises to 342 hours.  So instead, P4P proposes that students be paid $570 ($18,240 x (228/912)/8) biweekly during 228-hour semesters, and $855 ($18,240 x (342/912)/8) biweekly during their 342-hour semesters.  The payments would be routed directly to students’ checking accounts, meaning that all students receiving Payment for Placements funds would need to register for direct deposit via Wolverine Access.

Program Administration

In the semester immediately prior to the implementation of Payment for Placements, the OFE and all MSW students in field will work together to apprise field sites of the upcoming policy change.  Supplying all sites with advance notice will be crucial for sites that are currently paying students, but are paying them fewer than $20 per hour.  These sites would then have time to decide whether they can afford to pay their field student(s) at this rate.  As for future MSW cohorts, the OFE will ask prospective field sites whether they would be able to pay at least $20 an hour, emphasizing that answering “no” to this question would not disqualify them from taking field students.  Sites that answer “yes” will be expected to tell their prospective field students, during their interview process, that they intend to be their payor.  When attempting to connect students to potential field placements, the OFE’s Field Advisors will inform students whether, under a given placement, they would be paid by the site itself or out of the Payment for Placements Fund. 

In turn, the question on the OFE’s Placement Verification Form which asks students about payment would be rewritten to read “Has your field site confirmed that  they will pay you an equivalent of $20 or more an hour for the duration of your time in field education?”  The purpose of this question is to check field sites’ communications with the OFE against their communication with students, i.e. to ensure that no field site tells the OFE that they will pay their student, but later tells the student that they cannot afford to pay them.  Students who select “no” will be automatically enrolled in the Payment for Placements Fund.  The Office of Student Services and Enrolment Management (OSSEM) will enroll said students in either of the two pre-set payment schedules as described earlier.  When students’ required field hours change as they transition between semesters, OSSEM staff will move them into the appropriate payment schedule accordingly. 

Students who select “yes” to the aforementioned question will be provided with a Payment Verification Form (PVF), which will ask what hourly rate equivalent the field site has agreed to pay them.  A student and field supervisor e-signing and dating the Form and submitting it to the OFE signifies that this agreement will not be breached.  The OFE will maintain digital copies of these forms, and students will be encouraged to do the same.  The primary purpose of PVF forms is to ensure against the possibility of students not being paid at an equitable rate by field sites that had previously agreed to do so.  The OFE will create the PVF form and send it to all field sites that agree to pay their students an equivalent of at least $20 an hour, as well as to the sites’ students.         

In the event that a field site stopped paying a student at or above this rate, said student would be able to submit their PVF and their two most recent bank statements to the OFE.  Asking for bank statements closes a loophole which would otherwise have enabled field students to get paid by both their field site and the Payment for Placements Fund by falsely claiming that their field site had stopped paying them.  If the student’s bank statements confirm that their field site had not paid them for at least four weeks, the OFE would enroll the student in the Payment for Placements Fund for the remainder of their time in the field.  

Upon the University’s announcements of the new line item, the SSW’s Department of Marketing/Communications would announce the establishment of Payment for Placements via a press release and on social media.

Implications for Income Reporting

Per the P4P team’s consultation with a tax preparation firm, student stipends need to be reported on IRS form 1098-T, the form used for reporting tuition payments and scholarships.  The University of Michigan automatically produces these pre-filled forms for MSW students, who can access them via Wolverine Access; there is no reason why receiving a stipend should change this process.  The one change that will need to be made for any student receiving a Payment for Placements stipend is the inclusion of the amount of the stipend paid out to the student in a given year.  This amount will be counted in the form’s fifth box, entitled “Scholarships or Grants”.  Because the stipends are not used to cover the cost of qualified educational expenses, they will be subject to taxation and students will need to report them using IRS form 8863. 

Opting Out for Students

Any students who might have real or perceived concerns with implications with regard to this stipend may opt-out of stipend payments with no explanation required. During course registration time for each following semester, students will have the opportunity to opt-in by filling out the forms as needed from the Office of Field Education.