At Harvey Mudd, all seniors do a thesis for credit.  And, no students (probalby one does once and a while) get credit for research before the senior year.  So, we pay them for research before the senior year.  I have been budgeting in summer stipends and academic year salaries on my most recent grants to pay for this.

Adam

At Reed, all seniors also do a year-long thesis for credit.  Because of this, we have a distinct line drawn in the sand where no students are paid for research during the academic year.  That said, we actually don't have too many students doing research during the academic year that are not seniors.  And if we do, we usually encourage them to do it on a voluntary basis rather than enroll for credit so that when they get really busy, they can easily bow out without having credit hanging on the line.  

I heard an interesting talk at the CUR National Conference this summer about using federal work-study funds to hire research students.  The presenter argued that on many campuses there is actually a surplus of this funding available and it is more attractive for students to do research for work-study rather than other jobs that are available on campus.  Does anybody have any experience with using work-study funds for research on their campus?

Generally, we give credit during the year, and pay during the summer. We have recently begun allowing students to do one "semester" of their year-long thesis during the junior-to-senior summer: they get *paid* for the summer, and enroll in the second semester of thesis during the year. They do *not* get a grade for the summer work, but are considered to have completed it. Some students would rather have the (generally high) thesis grade, some students would rather have one more spot to take another class in their last year of college. We try to give them this flexibility.