Detroit — Detroit Cristo Rey High School is one of 26 schools in the Cristo Rey network helping to make Catholic education more accessible through a work-study program in which students work with a designated company to help cover tuition costs, gaining useful workplace experience along the way.
The program was started in 1995 by a Cristo Rey school in Chicago as a way for students in low-income families to pay for their tuition. According to Michael Khoury, president of the Detroit school, the administration found it to be successful, not only in helping ease the burden of a private school tuition, but also in giving the students a sense of responsibility, and a glimpse of what a professional career is like.
“The good news is we’re giving these kids a Catholic education that they couldn’t usually afford; the bad news is they can’t afford a Catholic education, so the question is, ‘well, how are you going to fund it?’” Khoury said.
Work-study is now implemented in all Cristo Rey schools throughout the country. At Detroit Cristo Rey, students work at several companies across Metro Detroit, such as PNC Bank, Beaumont Hospital, General Motors and Chrysler.
“We work with over 90 corporations and organizations here in Detroit. In exchange for the work that our students do, the companies pay us,” Khoury said.
Corporate sponsors come to Cristo Rey letting them know positions they’re looking to fill, and what qualities they’re looking for in applicant. They pair students with jobs that might fit best. At the end of the school year, most sponsors continue to participate in the program, with more than a 90 percent retention rate, Khoury said.
The program begins during freshman year, when students are given four weeks of job training. The students are taught the ins and outs of working in a professional environment, including everything from how to assemble a resume to how to tie a tie and give a proper handshake.
Students work at different job sites across Metro Detroit five days a month, working at least one day a week. Cristo Rey provides transportation to and from their job sites.
Families with students enrolled at Cristo Rey are still required to pay tuition, but the costs are greatly reduced, supplemented by the money students earn in the work-study program.
“This year, our students are going to earn about $1.6 million that’s going to come to the school, and that will cover over half of our expenses,” Khoury said.
“We do fundraise, but 60 percent of our money will come from the kids working these jobs,” he said. “But what they didn’t expect, and is equally important, is the impact that the jobs program had on our students.”
According to Khoury, the program offers two major advantages to students, the first being the chance to see firsthand the opportunities that are open to them after graduating college.
“The other thing that happens is the relationship that develops between our students and their work-sponsors,” he said. “The work sponsors are saying to the kids things like ‘how’s school going?’ or ‘how are your grades?’ They’re really reinforcing all the things that you want them to do, and also telling them ‘If you go to college, you can come and work here.’”
Since it opened in 2009, Detroit Cristo Rey has had two graduating classes from the work-study program. Some students have even been invited back to work part-time at some of their work-study locations.
“We had 46 students in our first graduating class, and I think seven or eight of them have graduated and are still working part time at their job sponsor while they go to college at Marygrove, Henry Ford or Wayne State,” Khoury said.
Lexus Gardner, a junior at Cristo Rey, spends her work-study time at Expeditors International, doing filing and data-entry work. She agrees her time in the program has made her feel more confident about future opportunities.
“I got more job experience, and social experience because I’m kind of shy,” she said, adding her time at her work-study job would help her in future interviews.
Karina Cebrero, a senior who works at R.L. Polk & Co., where she started as a freshman and gradually gained more responsibilities, started with tasks such as working Excel spreadsheets.
“This year I worked at the legal office, and I did more stuff there,” she said, such as proofreading documents.
Both students said their work-studies were their first sources of work.
This year, Detroit Cristo Rey, which is sponsored by the Basilian Fathers and Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, is looking forward to its largest-ever enrollment. To new students who may not be used to a work-study style of learning, Cebrero and Gardner have some words of advice:
“Keep an open mind. Before I didn’t have any office experience, so I thought that working in an office would be really boring, but actually it’s the opposite. I really liked it,” Cebrero said.
“Be prepared to work,” Gardner said. “You might not like it at first, but you’ll get used to it and get more experience than you thought.”
