Colorado State University-Pueblo work-study funds were cut by 20 percent this 2016-2017 school year. It is no secret that $600 is a lot to a college student. It could be one month’s rent at their apartment complex somewhere in Pueblo or a new laptop.
CSU-Pueblo employs about 650 students every year at various campus jobs. Usually, each student qualifies for work-study for an allotted amount of $3,000 a year, $1,500 a semester to earn as a work-study award.
The average work-study earnings out of the original $3,000 for the year ranged from $1,700 to $2,200 with a few exceptions, meaning students were not earning the full advantage of their given awards and only received 56 percent to 73 percent total of what they could have. Due to this, director of financial aid, Justin Streater, assistant director of financial aid, Greg Thorsten, and vice president of enrollment management and student affairs, Chrissy Holliday and a financial aid consultant, found it necessary to drop many students work-study award allowance to $2,400 a year, $1,200 a semester.
“We were trying to make more opportunity for students to get jobs on campus and that way we would free up more money for more positions for more students. Typically, in the past we haven’t used all of our federal or state work-study and this way we thought if we could create more positions then more students could work, and we could use it all,” Streater said.
Mathematics major, Ariel Payne, a junior at CSU-Pueblo is one of many who received the 20 percent cut in the work-study award this year. She has held the campus work-study position at the CSU-Pueblo Bookstore as a cashier for over a year now.
“My work-study was cut by $300 a semester. It makes things difficult since my work-study is my only source of income. Since it’s been cut either my monthly paychecks will be smaller, or I’ll run out of hours,” Payne said.
The cuts across the board did vary, some students still received the full $3,000 for the year and some the $2,400, and some who already have jobs on campus that are not work-study positions, like resident assistants (RA’s) received even less.
“We’ve tried to grandfather everybody who had $3,000 into the next year, but just some of them with timing, with technical issues, they didn’t all come across, but anybody who has come in and is like ‘hey I had $3000 last year’ we’ve increased those back to $3,000,” he said.
As far as the RA’s that qualify for work-study, students are allowed only a certain budget and factoring in their lack of paying for room and board. Their budget can end up much smaller for work-study than other students. However, financial aid is still trying to make their work-study situation better as well.
“I wish we would do that a little differently. I’m trying to get housing to give them a scholarship as opposed to us just removing it from their budget so that way it’s on the books to better,” he said.
An increase of work-study funds for next semester is not likely to happen, but might for the 2017-2018 school year. At the end of the year, there will be a reevaluation of student work-study funds for a chance of funds being increased back to the standard award of $3,000 per qualifying student per year.
“We look at how many accepted it, how many worked and then the average work award. So what they actually earned for the full year. That’s kind of what we did before we reduced to the $2,400,” Streater said.
For now, students who have a lower work-study award, and it is their only source of income, the financial aid department does have resources for them including SALT, financial literacy and budgeting program free to students and some available grants and scholarships can be applied if they talk to a financial aid counselor.
Streater hopes to improve financial literacy among students on campus as well as improve the communication between the financial aid department and students, so they know about the resources and opportunities available to them.
“I always try to tell students ‘just come in and ask or shoot me an email’ because I’m always happy to help. I was a student for a very long time, and I’ve been in financial aid for over 10 years and I know how it is so I’m always trying help students as much as possible,” he said.
The financial aid office is located in the administration building. No appointment is necessary to meet with a financial aid counselor.