The outside language of the House budget was vetoed by Weld, who called the exemption a "loophole" and charged that it would almost certainly be misused by AFDC recipients.
"Basically, you could spend 10 years going to school part-time, maybe talking one course a semester at night-time working toward a degree in basket weaving, and still demand taxpayer support full time all the way," Weld said to the Boston Globe.
"The loophole is so large that the entire welfare caseload could find the time to camp out there if they wanted to," Weld added.
House Override
Supporters of the education exemption reacted to the Governor's comments with anger, saying he was engaging in hyperbole and suggesting that Weld was interested more in relieving the welfare caseload than in helping aid recipients. The House responded by overriding Weld's veto.
"In terms of the substance of Governor Weld's remarks, I would have to say that not only are they without foundation, but extremely disobliging, both to the recipients themselves and to the institutions of higher learning in which these women are enrolled," Greene wrote in a memo to colleagues at Radcliffe.
"Basket weaving? God. This is nothing more than histrionics," Bosley, the state representative said. "All the statistics show that people are much more prone to staying off welfare if they have higher education."
The statistics cited by Bosley, Chandler, Wilson and others include a 1988 study of New York residents who were AFDC-dependent when they entered college. Results of the study showed that 89 percent had jobs a few years after graduating from college, and 87 percent no longer received welfare. The Howard Samuels state Management and Policy center at the Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York conducted the study.
Another study, complied by the Center for Women Policy Studies in Washington, indicates that a woman with an associate's degree makes about 65 percent more than a woman without one.
And still another study found that a single year of college can affect a person's performance in the work force. This study, conducted by the University of Madison, found that women who completed one year of college were almost twice as likely as high school graduates to get off welfare voluntarily.
The Future of Welfare Reform
Ultimately, the decision on whether enrollment in post-secondary school degree program will entitle AFDC recipients to an exemption from Governor Weld's two-year limit will rest with the Massachusetts State Senate.
Wilson and the Women College Presidents continue to support higher education as a means for preparing aid-dependent individuals for life after welfare.
"Education is the only sure route out of poverty and off of the cycle of public dependence," Wilson said. "There are many wonderful success stories; it would be a terrible waste of human potential to let opportunity and future dreams fall by the wayside."