The International Work Opportunity Returnability Kuleana, known also as IWORK, is a scholarship program created for students who require some financial support to attend BYU-Hawaii for an education, said Financial Services personnel. It is also a program that provides students the opportunity to work at the Polynesian Culture Center. Rebecca Harrison, the director of Financial Aid at BYUH Financial Services, said, the IWORK program “provides an opportunity for students with specific financial needs to come and get a college education, and also learn some valuable work and living skills while they’re here on campus.” It is a program that helps students get an education without any worry of debt after graduation. Harrison said the majority of “the average United States student leave college with a $55,000 student loan.” But, IWORK students accepted into the program are given jobs, education, and return home with no debts if they meet the returnability requirements. After students return home, they have one-fourth of the their debt forgiven each year for four years. After four years, their educational loans are completely forgiven and they owe nothing. “I think that it is a great opportunity that if I had been in college, and I had been offered this program, I would have taken it in a second. It’s a great opportunity for students to get a college education and to go out to work with no debt,” said Harrison. She said this program focuses more on international students because the mainland students have support from the government. And once the international students are accepted into the IWORK program, they are given the “opportunity to work” at the PCC as well as receiving an education for nine semesters. However, Harrison said joining the IWORK program means students “commit to return home and accept the stewardship to be responsible, and to contribute to their families and countries.” When IWORK students first arrived at BYUH, they’re required to get a job at PCC. Although Harrison said, “There are some circumstances where IWORK students can appeal to work on campus, but it is not a guarantee [because] they’re very tightly managed.” IWORK is strictly a BYUH program to help students attend college and receive education, but although it is a BYUH program, the PCC also has a big role in it that benefits and helps students financially. Harrison said PCC’s role is to “provide jobs for IWORK students, just like they provide jobs for other students here at the campus.” She explained it’s important for IWORK students to work at PCC to “make sure that PCC has some of the right mix of student workers in order to make the center be successful.” While IWORK is a BYUH program, “PCC depends on this program to be successful, and we [BYUH] depend on PCC to provide students jobs so that students can afford to be here,” said Harrison. It’s a program, where BYUH and PCC are tied together, as they depend on each other to provide students the opportunity to work as well as being independent financially. Becky Bayardelger, a BYUH accounting graduate from Mongolia, who was an IWORK student when she first applied for BYUH, said without IWORK, she would not be able to attend BYUH because “it is expensive and I can’t afford that.” She said what she like about IWORK was the jobs already available for them at PCC. She said IWORK students get jobs first over other people because the program guarantees them a job. “So in a sense it was nice cause I [didn’t really need] to worry about not finding a job. It was already there for us, “ said Bavardelger. Another IWORK student, Kaye Destacamento, a BYUH business management graduate from the Philippines, said she was grateful for the IWORK program “because without IWORK I wouldn’t be here.” She liked working at PCC, which the IWORK program requires the students to do because she was “able to meet with different kinds of people, and I was able to learn from them, and at the same time, have fun with my co-workers and also International students.”
Writer: Robinia Tan~Multimedia Journalist
