Dirty Jobs

A single tweet has launched a fiery debate over how Harvard University, one of the country’s wealthiest institutions, is using a federal subsidy -- taxpayer dollars that help low-income students get part-time jobs -- to pay for those students to clean dormitory rooms and toilets.  The online dispute has prompted questions whether Harvard, with its nearly $40 billion endowment, even deserves federal-work study dollars -- but also more generally, whether many institutions take advantage of the money by offering jobs that entail manual labor and not opportunities that are career focused.