The payoff is significant. Kinsley said service learning can be incorporated on every campus, although he admitted the program must adapted to meet the unique needs of commuter schools compared with residential campuses. Commuter schools have more nontraditional students. They may already be involved in their local community. The challenge is finding the correct balance among school, work, and family.
Service learning allows students to put classroom theory into practice.
They may learn about homelessness in their sociology class, but when they volunteer at the City Gospel Mission downtown, they see the effects of homelessness on the faces of the men and women standing in the food line. The pedagogy of service learning humanizes the educational experience and puts the education into the social context of what's happening right now. It's not enough for you and I to have a nice car and home if we don't try to help others have the same aspirations. Students will find that because of the social issues and social environment in which some people have to exist, it's difficult for them to even conceive a regular paycheck, a nice home, or a higher education. After all, there are no parent-teacher conferences in higher education.