Funding Your Graduate Education: Questions Answered by Michael Light, Director of Financial Aid

               With all the changes to the federal budget as a result of sequestration, many current and prospective students have voiced concerns regarding the availability of financial aid.  These concerns are 100% valid and most students will be affected by cuts to the federal budget (see below).  While changes are coming down the line, students should feel assured that funding a graduate education will still be as possible as ever.  Below are some common questions current and future students have asked and their answers.

Will the federal budget cuts mean that I am less likely to receive grants/scholarships?

No, completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) determines students’ eligibility for federal work-study and federal loans.  The vast majority of scholarship aid available at SP2 comes directly from the school (over 95%).  The other 5% is almost all funding students have been awarded in recompense for some kind of service, such as AmeriCorps Segal Education Awards.  While AmeriCorps benefits may be affected going forward, Penn SP2 will continue to commit nearly $3M of our own resources to fund scholarships regardless of federal budget cuts. 

Will I have trouble obtaining federal student loans?

No, federal student loans will be available just as they have been.  However, the origination fees associated with 2 federal loan programs will increase.  The origination fee for the Federal Direct Stafford Loan will increase from 1% to 1.05%.  The origination fee for the Federal Graduate PLUS loan will increase from 4% to 4.2%.  The Federal Perkins Loan will continue to be free of fees.

Will work-study still be available?

Federal Work-Study funding will be cut by $86M.  This may mean that fewer students will be able to receive work-study but to what degree that may or may not happen is still unclear.  For our MSW students that would normally use their field placement as their work study job, SP2 would award an additional $1,000 in grants for any full-time MSW student denied work-study due to the reductions in federal funding.

While these cuts are not ideal, they have had no effect on the scholarships or loans that students can obtain.  Every dollar one would need to fund their graduate education is still available.  For students that intend on using the Pay As Your Earn Plan and Public Service Loan Forgiveness (http://studentaid.ed.gov/repay-loans/understand/plans/pay-as-you-earn), the slight increase in fees may not even be incurred by the student; the total amount paid by the student may remain the same.  Please don’t hesitate to contact me at light@sp2.upenn.edu or 215-746-5894 should you have any questions.

Social Entrepreneurship by Dr. Peter Frumkin

Ten years ago, as the excitement about social entrepreneurship began to take off, I decided to do a little field work. I compared the syllabi at major research universities where both classes on nonprofit management and social entrepreneurship were taught and looked for differences and similarities between the two. There turned out to be a lot of overlap, from defining mission and establishing a defensible competitive position, to marketing and stakeholder management, and encompassing such things as building boards and measuring performance. In other words the differences between the conceptualization of the two fields were small, at least in terms of what was being taught to students. It was easy thus to dismiss the whole social entrepreneurship movement as a fad grounded largely in a few clever new terms and phrases that simply obscured ideas rooted in the old and familiar field of nonprofit management. This early judgment proved false. 

Over time, the concept of social entrepreneurship grew, became more distinctive, and spawned a vast new literature, teaching programs and degrees. Harvard anchored its work in the concept of ‘social enterprise,’ Stanford opted for ‘social innovation,’ Wharton branded around ‘social impact’, and Duke latched on to ‘social entrepreneurship.’ Whatever they call it, these programs, centers, and initiatives have grown stronger and more defined. It is useful to think of these related concepts as part of a continuum. Social entrepreneurs are the actors who do the work, social enterprises are the organizational forms that are used, social innovation is the theory of change that guides the process, and social impact is the end result that is achieved. 

But what is social entrepreneurship really and how is it different from nonprofit management? I have concluded through my own teaching and research that the essence of the special identity of social entrepreneurship lies in three necessary elements. 

For something to be a manifestation of social entrepreneurship, it must first involve a new and innovative way of solving a public problem. Innovation is at the core of the work of a social entrepreneur who looks at the world, identifies a problem, and then advances a new solution. Social entrepreneurship cannot simply involve dutiful replication or adaptation of models already in use and accepted as mainstream practice. It must represent a new combination of ideas and initiatives that promise to address a pressing problem by bringing something new to the table, be it fresh technology, a new theory of change, or an insight transferred from an allied field. 

The second element of social entrepreneurship requires that any solution be designed from the outset to be part of a financially and organizationally sustainable model. Social entrepreneurs do not write concept papers and endless foundation proposals, and then sit around waiting for someone to authorize them to act. Instead, they design their enterprises so that are capable of running on their own engine and surviving in a turbulent sea. Whether it be through a stream of related or unrelated earned income or built on volunteer labor, social entrepreneurs are designing and building organizations that are financially and institutionally viable from the start and over the long haul.  They take seriously the challenge of ensuring that the organizational design and financial model are not second thoughts, but part of the core calculus of pursuing lasting social change. 

The third and last essential element of social entrepreneurship is scale. Social change may start locally, but ambitious social entrepreneurs think through and know how their ideas and programs can spread broadly. They design their operations in a way that they can be grown or replicated so as to reach more and more people.  This focus on scale differentiates the social entrepreneur because they know that the scale of complex and enduring problems is such that no small-scale solution is enough. The essence of change requires a commitment of scale. 

Innovation, sustainability and scalability can be achieved using both nonprofit and for-profit organizational forms. In fact, social entrepreneurs are agnostic on sector and view it as a contingent decision that is dependent on the problem that is being addressed and the best auspice for supporting innovation, financial sustainability and scale. In some cases, nonprofit forms may be best, while in other contexts for-profit forms may be most appropriate. No matter the sector, social entrepreneurship demands a value-seeking imagination, a high degree of comfort with risk and uncertainty, and a willingness of adapt and iterate over time.

Social entrepreneurs and nonprofit managers start with very different assumptions and work through different means, albeit in the same general direction of social impact. At Penn School of Social Policy and Practice, we teach both social entrepreneurship and nonprofit management, and on top of that we add the third paradigm of nonprofit leadership. The field of practice that Penn seeks to shape is, I believe, rendered richer by virtue of the open battle of ideas between these fields, the way they complement and challenge one another, and the special skills and tools that all three fields contribute to the challenge of creating social impact. 

By:  Peter Frumkin, PhD, who is a Professor of SocialPolicy, Faculty Director of the Center for High Impact Philanthropy, and Director of the Nonprofit Leadership Program at SP2.

Dominika Jaworski, MSSP 2012 Graduate, Shares her Huffington Post Blog "B-Corps Benefits"

My interest in social business initially began during my first semester in the Masters in Social Policy program. In Professor Lamas' Financial Accounting class, I became interested in alternative models to financing non-profit activities and solving social problems. It was then when I became intrigued with the role of business in social impact.  While interning at the Wharton Program for Social Initiatives, I was first introduced to B-corps and Greyston Bakery, which is run by Wharton graduates. This 'blog entry' was originally written for our Social Policy Capstone Media Advocacy module with Dr. Susan Haas, and, upon her encouragement, I sent it off as a pitch to the Huffington Post. 

I am currently working as a microfinance researcher and involved in Wharton Professor Keith Weigelt's Building Bridges to Wealth program. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dominika-jaworski/b-corporations_b_1898198.html

by Dominika Jaworski, Master of Science in Social Policy 2012