Student workers who receive federal work-study funds just learned their pay is going to decrease to below minimum wage.
Lipscomb was required to pay Federal Work Study students $7.25 an hour prior to last week’s change that takes them down to $6.85 per hour, according to Janice Cato, human resources assistant.
The wage was slashed due to the high number of students eligible to receive the funds, she said.
“Because the FWS is used up for those eligible students, their pay rates need to be changed to the regular student pay rate of $6.85 an hour,” Cato said.
While $6.85 is below minimum wage, “LU has been approved by the Department of Labor to pay student workers sub-minimum wage,” Cato said.
The students will be able to keep the jobs they have as of right now, but may eventually have to leave their jobs if their pay remains that low.
Tuesday night in his State of the Union message, President Obama promised to work to raise minimum wage to $9 an hour.
Some students have said they are unhappy with both the pay cut as well as the way the university informed them of the change.
“I don’t think the way it was handled was very ethical,” said work-study scholar Kelly Dean. “All we got was a one-sentence email that said ‘you are no longer required for Federal Work Study as of this date.’”
Dean goes on to say that the email gave no explanation to the students as to why their pay was decreasing.
“I definitely think it is going to affect a lot of students who have FWS,” Dean said.
Another FWS student worker, Laurel Marchesoni, received the same email, but she sent back several questions.
“I emailed back, asking what was I supposed to do? Where was my income now supposed to come from?” Marchesoni said. She said there has been no response.
One of the main reasons that the FWS funds are so important is because they allow students to hold jobs that they normally would not take. For example, Marchesoni is an intern at Youth Encouragement Services’ daycare, which would not be able to hire student workers like Marchesoni if they did not have the funds provided by Lipscomb.
“Y.E.S. has been relying on Lipscomb work study workers since I have been working there (two years),” Marchesoni said. “They are a non-profit organization that has a very strict budget and little money to pay workers.”
Marchesoni does not know how much longer she will be able to keep her job at Y.E.S. because of the funding cut. “Y.E.S. is more than just a job to me,” she said. “I am passionate about the kids that I work with and love them as my own.”
Like Marchesoni, Dean and other FWS students rely on that steady income that hassuddenly diminished. “I count on that paycheck because I pay for my own school,” Dean said.
Many students affected by the FWS cuts are confused and upset. “The fact that Lipscomb decided that the money was exhausted and to stop paying these community service organizations makes me question where all the money is going,” Marchesoni said.