Work­ers and Wages Fluc­tu­ate on Cam­pus due to Grants

MISHAWAKA–– Work­ing while at­tend­ing col­lege full-time is a re­al­ity for many stu­dents on cam­pus. Even with many stu­dents need­ing to work, there are not as many stu­dent work­ers this year and there is a greater need to fill po­si­tions so cam­pus can run as smoothly as pos­si­ble.

Ac­cord­ing to Cindy Kuehn, pay­roll and em­ployee ben­e­fits man­ager, about 20% of stu­dents have on-cam­pus jobs. The hard­est part about fill­ing all the po­si­tions avail­able is that many stu­dents are too busy with classes, sports, ex­tracur­ric­u­lars or other ac­tiv­i­ties and do not have time to work.

“We did add a few more [po­si­tions] due to ini­tia­tives we are pur­su­ing through some short-term grants we were awarded,” Kuehn said in an email in­ter­view.

Each po­si­tion is paid about the same, but cer­tain po­si­tions have had an in­crease in wages due to grant fund­ing.

With the ad­di­tion of a few new po­si­tions, there is a slightly greater need for work­ers. Many times, there are not po­si­tions filled and nearly every­where on cam­pus is hir­ing.

There are many ben­e­fits to work­ing on cam­pus. An ad­van­tage is that stu­dents are ex­empt from FICA taxes on their in­comes, which is about 7.65% that is taken out if stu­dents have jobs off cam­pus. In ad­di­tion, stu­dents can work fewer hours and fit it into their school sched­ule eas­ier. If stu­dents work off-cam­pus, the jobs are less likely to be as flex­i­ble. Some stu­dents only work an hour or two, and off-cam­pus jobs rarely of­fer that few hours. This is ben­e­fi­cial for hav­ing a small source of in­come while in school, but it is still man­age­able for stu­dents. 

“The stu­dent is re­ally able to cus­tomize their work sched­ule based on their needs,” Kuehn said.