Sticking Around
With the recent changes to student financialaid awards, some students are quitting theirwork-study jobs. According to Homer, of thestudents affected by the new awards, half haveresponded so far and one-third of these have usedtheir awards to offset work-study expectationsrather than loans.
Yet Dining Services workers, it seems, are notamong this one-third.
Buck, Romain and Sheets-Poling--all of whom arework-study--say they used the awards to reducetheir loans. In fact, none of the studentsinterviewed planned to quit their jobs in the wakeof financial aid changes.
Several students mentioned other concerns,however, as reasons to move on.
"If I found something more related to a careerI'm interested in, that would convince me toswitch [jobs]," Ceruzzi says. Boyadjiev saysincreased pressure from his extracurricularactivities has led him to consider quitting.
Homer notes that even if some students usenewly allocated funds to replace work-studyearnings, those federal funds will be freed up forother students not previously eligible for thework-study program. The process thus maintains thesame amount of overall work-study funds available.
According to Peter J. Atkinson, manager ofAdams House dining hall, even if all studentsworking in the dining halls were to quit, theeffects would be minimal.
"We have six student labor hours per week inthis dining hall, compared with about 1,000 totallabor hours here per week," he says.
Mayer says Dining Services is amenable tostudents, work-study or not, who want to stopworking in the wake of financial aid changes.
"We have no difficulty with that decision,"says Mayer of students who substitute the newaward for work-study wages. "People go to schoolhere to get an education. As a father, I can tellyou that I wish my daughter's school would dosomething like that."
McNitt stresses that this does not mean DiningServices doesn't need or want student employees.
"We want student input," she says. "Any studentwho wants a job with Dining Services candefinitely get one.