Breaking the Bank
Princeton Review ranks Wabash College as one of the top ten colleges in the country when it comes to financial aid. Last year alone, the college awarded more than 3.5 million dollars in scholarships, and we are nationally recognized for our commitment to meet 100% of every student’s demonstrated financial need. Unfortunately, with the ringing in of the biggest freshmen class in recorded Wabash history, many are finding out that meeting a student’s demonstrated need is an easy promise to make when nearly every student’s financial aid package includes Employment Self-Help without any guarantee the hours or jobs will be available on campus.
For a large majority of Wabash students, their financial aid statement has an item total labeled Employment Self-Help, or ESH. This is an alternative to borrowing that allows students to work on campus to help pay the cost of their own attendance. The total is supposed to reflect the amount a student is eligible to earn throughout the year and the amount they will need to come up with in order to cover the costs of attendance. A recent survey of 58 ESH eligible students found that earning all of their ESH is unrealistic, since the system has become over saturated with student workers.
Nearly 26% of respondents actively searching for more hours on campus have been unsuccessful. A quick visit to WabashWorks explained why; as of November 4th, there isn’t a single job posted. Of course, this far into the semester, I didn’t expect to find many openings, but this does prove that the students without hours are not to blame. Otherwise, the void of posted jobs may be insignificant since the results of the survey suggest that students were less likely to find a job using WabashWorks than their peers who simply applied where they knew someone in the office or walked in to inquire about a position. I don’t intend to debate the merits of cronyism. Though many of the respondents complained, I think our tight knit community serves us well and don’t find anything wrong with a student being hired because he knows the employer and has already demonstrated his qualifications. However, if there are jobs available on campus, students need to know about them so they can apply. Employers should be listing their openings on WabashWorks since it is the only source advertised to students for finding jobs. They should be equally diligent in letting students know when positions have been filled. This means, both removing the listing from WabashWorks, and having the courtesy to send a message to students whose resumes were declined.
The lack of available hours has serious consequences. Many students reported that it takes them three to four weeks to earn what they are eligible to make in one. Nearly 58% of the respondents not earning their max available ESH are using credit cards and alternative loans to make up the difference, while 34% rely on additional support from their family. Lower paying, off campus jobs are not uncommon either, which means many students would need to work more hours off campus to earn the same amount as they would in fewer hours on campus. The problem with finding ESH jobs would not be as grave if Wabash were set in Indianapolis or West Lafayette, but a few weeks of job hunting and even an interview with a local staffing firm turned up little employment that would accommodate the schedules of full time college students in Crawfordsville.
The Financial Aid Office is in the process of reviewing the system. Financial Aid Director Clint Gasaway said, “If we’re not perceiving a problem that is there, we certainly want to know about it. Our goal is to have students work as much as they can and as much as they want to, thereby borrowing as little as they need.” In reality, there is no sure way to gauge the system until a problem arises. The office has to rely on historical data and a guess of how much students are willing to work (many students who are eligible choose not to work) and then try to expand the system when there is a demand for more ESH. Gasaway said another option is to move to a more centralized approach that includes adding a full time staff member to the office, or even a student, whose responsibilities would be to monitor the ESH system, employer postings, and also ensure students who want jobs are finding them.
My suggestion is to give an annual pay increase for ESH students. Hold your judgment freshmen and sophomores. Upperclassmen are eligible for more hours, and since they do not need to reapply at the start of every year, they take a bigger piece of the ESH hour pie that we all share. If upperclassmen are paid more per hour, they would need to work less hours a week to earn their ESH, which would in turn, open up more hours around campus for underclassmen. Currently, freshmen have to compete for hours at the start of the year with upperclassmen who have seniority in every office. This would also guarantee that juniors and seniors are not working 16 and 20 hours a week (the max hours they are eligible for, respectively), and instead assure a steady and manageable workload for every student, from freshman year to graduation. The only other option is to expand the ESH hours available in some campus offices, conversely diminishing the marginal utility of every ESH hour since students will be doing “make work” in useless positions.
A campus job can teach students’ time management and provide valuable work experience. “It improves the college to have student workers,” said Gasaway, and if a student is having trouble finding hours, they need to see the Financial Aid Office to find out if their ESH can be converted in to a subsidized loan. It is a sad reality that we can’t all have jobs like the guy sleeping at the desk in the Allen Center, but we should be grateful that we go to a college where they can give financial aid so freely and where we can expect a problem like this one to be addressed promptly.
