Tufts students getting financial aid through work-study jobs may have reason to worry: The government has recently made it more difficult for students to get work-study jobs by decreasing the Federal Work-Study (FWS) program at many universities by about 20 percent.
The FWS has been used across the country to help university students meet their financial needs. According to senior Daniela Fairchild, who receives work-study pay for both an on-campus and an off-campus job, the concept behind the program is relatively simple.
"It's just money, like a regular job," she says. "It's not like a loan you're paying off by working. It's like an allowance from the government, but you have to do chores to get it."
Now, though, it might be harder to get that allowance. "The centerpiece of the Bush administration economic policy has been tax cuts," Tufts Economics Professor Daniel Richards said. "With the budget spraying red ink like a severed artery, the administration has to either rescind the tax cuts or cut spending if it is to meet its ... goal of cutting the deficit in half."
"As I said, though, the tax cuts are Bush's primary goal, and the administration will never touch them," Richards added. "So, all it can do is badmouth so-called 'wasteful government spending' and try to make some cuts somewhere. FWS is a minor part of that somewhere."
With more people vying for the same number of jobs, the dwindling of work-study funding has made financial life difficult for many students across the country. According to the student newspaper at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, one student even had to withdraw from her sorority because she was unable to continue paying the mandatory fees.
At Tufts, the picture seems more complex. Though the same sorts of positions are being offered on-campus, at locations such as dining services and the fitness facilities, various off-campus jobs also allow students to receive work-study compensation.
According to the description of Tufts' work-study program that appears on Webcenter, "this program allows work-study students to work for non-profit organizations in positions that will directly benefit the community."
Perhaps because of their various options, students at Tufts haven't reported having extreme trouble securing a job. But differences in the numbers of work-study applicants have been noted, according to Donna Rodriguez, who runs the University's Off-Campus Housing Resource Center.
"I did have an overwhelming response to my initial ad for student workers," she said. "I was amazed, as this hadn't been the case in the past."
"I actually thought it was due to the development of the Job X program," said Rodriguez, referring to the online job listings that connect Tufts employers with potential student employees.
Director of Financial Aid Patricia Reilly offered another explanation for the surge of students responding to ads for work-study positions.
"A few years ago, when every off-campus employer was desperate for workers and paying top-dollar, it was very easy to find a job on campus. In the past few years, the labor market has tightened up, fewer students have found jobs off campus and more students are looking for on-campus jobs," Reilly said.
But what happens to those students who have already obtained work-study jobs? Reilly said that "the work-study funds that Tufts receives from the federal government have held fairly steady for the past several years."
Correspondingly, Rodriguez has had the opportunity to increase, albeit not by much, the salaries of some of her work-study employees.
Some students, however, report having experienced pay and/or hour assignment decreases. "I used to get more money for my job on campus," Fairchild said. "The salary used to get raised each semester that you worked there, but now they just give a flat rate. I've been at that job since freshman spring, so it was a pay decrease for me."
Other students are lucky enough to have their salaries increased. However, with more students going for the same number of time slots, less working hours are available to each of them.
Noah Fortinsky, a junior working in the political science department, has noticed this effect. Despite having received a slight raise (going from $8.50 an hour to $8.75 in the past two years), he is making less money than he did previously as a result of more students scheduled to work and people receiving less hours in turn.
"I transferred to Tufts from George Washington University, and I worked in the history department there," Fortinsky said. "Before I left, I was making $9 [an hour]. I generally did the same amount of work, and I had a lot more hours because there were only two of us working there."
Junior Maggie Yudelson, who is employed in a work-study job at the fitness center in Gantcher, acknowledged the difficulties of paying students more in the face of government cutbacks. She observed, however, that despite the struggle for working hours, Tufts is still keeping some avenues closed.
"One thing in particular I have noticed is the hours for the Tower Caf?©. It isn't open until noon, and I know a lot of people that would have no problem working earlier, and the school would be pulling in more money because people have classes in the library at all hours, so it seems to me that it would be mutually beneficial," she said.
