Student employment likely to change
Rising minimum wage may force college to revamp employment
Brittney Sandberg
Issue date: 4/23/09 Section: News
On July 24, the federal minimum wage will be increasing 70 cents from $6.55 to $7.25. That means most workers who occupy the lower end of the income spectrum, such as Lakeland students, will receive a raise this summer, and those raises may require some businesses to lay off workers, a situation that Lakeland hopes to avoid.
"Lakeland's overall goal is to maintain the number of overall positions that are available," said Jill Preissner, manager of student employment. "Such a high percentage of students are getting federal work study money in their financial aid packages that it is very important that we keep the positions on campus."
Several changes have already been implemented this year to help make that possible, like allowing students to only hold one on-campus job (except for certain positions such as tutors and tour guides) and lowering the hours that students could work each week from twenty to ten (eight for freshman) which created two positions instead of just one.
Preissner said, "I can guarantee 100 percent that the wages will be changing next fall because of the federal minimum wage going up." But other potential changes, such as possibly altering the pay structure, remain uncertain.
The current structure for student pay involves tiers and levels. Jobs are placed into tier one or two based on their description, and students are in level one if it is their first or second year working on campus and level two if it is their third or fourth year working on campus.
"There are a lot of different things being thrown around," said Preissner, "but it is going to come down to a numbers situation as well as how well did this year's structure work. We already looked at the eight/ten hour policy [that separated freshman workers from other students].
"The idea was that freshman should be focusing on their academics, but I've seen that all students reduce their hours as they need to according to their academics, so after having the discussion in the student employment appeals committee, we decided that just to create a lot less confusion, it will be ten hours for everyone next year."
"Lakeland's overall goal is to maintain the number of overall positions that are available," said Jill Preissner, manager of student employment. "Such a high percentage of students are getting federal work study money in their financial aid packages that it is very important that we keep the positions on campus."
Several changes have already been implemented this year to help make that possible, like allowing students to only hold one on-campus job (except for certain positions such as tutors and tour guides) and lowering the hours that students could work each week from twenty to ten (eight for freshman) which created two positions instead of just one.
Preissner said, "I can guarantee 100 percent that the wages will be changing next fall because of the federal minimum wage going up." But other potential changes, such as possibly altering the pay structure, remain uncertain.
The current structure for student pay involves tiers and levels. Jobs are placed into tier one or two based on their description, and students are in level one if it is their first or second year working on campus and level two if it is their third or fourth year working on campus.
"There are a lot of different things being thrown around," said Preissner, "but it is going to come down to a numbers situation as well as how well did this year's structure work. We already looked at the eight/ten hour policy [that separated freshman workers from other students].
"The idea was that freshman should be focusing on their academics, but I've seen that all students reduce their hours as they need to according to their academics, so after having the discussion in the student employment appeals committee, we decided that just to create a lot less confusion, it will be ten hours for everyone next year."
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