the student factor

In all reality, the group that is going to be most affected by the minimum wage hike is students. Most of the people actually earning a minimum wage are college age or younger and it was hard to find anyone from this age group who wasn't smiling over the prospect of a raise.

The misconception here seems to be that because college students, like myself and my classmates, may not be supporting anyone other than themselves, means that we are doing just find with the minimum wage as it. I feel this is something that needs to be cleared up. At the risk of this post becoming a dramatic "woe-is-me" complaint about my lack of funds, many students find themselves in the same predicament - and contrary to popular belief, a lot of us don't have mommy and daddy to bail us out, and for that matter, we'd rather not have to rely on them.

The first problem with student employees is that we do not have the time to put in 40-hour work weeks. College students who live off campus have rent and bills to pay (which are usually higher than average in Athens), food, gas, car and cell phone payments, and some even have credit card payments. Many of us are at the same time attempting to save money to participate in academic activities such as study abroad programs and professional conferences, to enable ourselves to complete an unpaid internship (which is something many college students will inevitably have to experience), while also worrying about saving money to pay off loans at a reasonable rate once we graduate.

It is wrong to think that college students do not necessarily benefit or need this kind of pay raise. True, money management is probably not a skill most students possess, myself included, but it's also difficult to gain a better understanding when we have no money to manage in the first place. Since funds are so low, when we find ourselves in a bind, short of taking out yet another loan, there is nowhere to turn but our parents, and as previously stated, there are plenty of times where we can't even fall back on that even if we wanted to.

A large number of college students work for the university either through the work study program or through the Program to Aid Career Exploration (PACE). Work study pays the minimum wage while PACE pays students $6 an hour and students can only work up to ten hours a week for either program. There are other job opportunities on campus, such as working for Baker, that are independent of the university, but are generally well paying positions.

Melissa Van Meter, Senior Assistant Director of Needs Analysis and Student Employment in the Financial Aid Office said there haven’t been any meetings about what is going to happen to student wages next quarter.

“An e-mail was sent to the U.S. Department of Education regarding whether we have to comply or not,” she said. “I’m assuming we will, but we haven’t heard back yet.” According to Van Meter, the decision and issue will be handled not just by Ohio University’s Office of Financial Aid, but also the Payroll office and Human Resources.

Several options will need to be explored, and it is yet to be seen how this will effect students. For exampl, if they comply to the wage hike, but cut hours, it's not really benefitting students at all. If this happens, it can be assured that there will be a backlash.