Feature: What's Up With Work Study?

Tengo…tengo la camisa negra, porque negra tengo el alma, yo por ti perdi la calma, y casi pierdo hasta mi cama…

Tengo La Camisa Negra is the name of the song playing from the swanky jukebox at the back of Zaragoza; the little Mexican bodega situated on 13^th street and avenue A. At the front counter stands 19-year old Lang student Katie Kenney, “la muchacha”, (the nickname her boss has given her) and she is the only white girl waitress to work at this cozy bodega. Kenney has been working here for what seems to have been ages, but in reality, only a little bit less than a year.

Complete with a wide selection of beers, Mexican sodas/drinks, authentic Mexican food, and a small selection of groceries, Zaragoza offers its customers an atmosphere reminiscent of a true Mexican bodega. Kenney says that she truly does love working there. However, the job came to her attention by pure chance.

Kenney, a sophomore at Eugene Lang College, is one of several students at the New School who has suffered from the shortage of work-study funds and jobs offered on campus. She had been awarded federal work-study, but had it taken away when she couldn’t find a job on campus within thirty days of school starting. Just as she had given up on the job search, Zaragoza entered the picture.

“I hung out at Zaragoza on the weekends in my freshman year. I kind of fell in love with the place…the family that owns it, and the 4 tables. Because that’s all they have. It’s just so…Mexican. I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing. But I love it,” Kenney says. “I was offered a job as a waitress after I befriended the owners.”

During the week, Zaragoza is open normal hours from 9:30am to 12am, but on the weekends, it’s another story. Zaragoza opens at 9:30am on Fridays and Saturdays, and stays open until 4am. “I don’t stay until 4am every weekend…most weekends I am technically off work by midnight,” Kenney says. Her shifts start at 6pm, and her workweek usually starts on Thursday night, and goes until Sunday morning. On more rare occasions, she’ll work Tuesdays and Thursdays, along with the weekends. In one week, Kenney works anywhere from 24-32 hours, but she doesn’t mind all too much.

“I don’t really get to go out as much as I’d like on the weekends, because I’m usually pretty tired once I get off work. My shift technically ends at midnight, but I don’t actually end up getting home sometimes until much later, because I can’t leave when there are still customers seated,” Kenney says. Zaragoza is known for it’s excellent authentic Mexican food, especially during the wee hours of the morning.

“That’s when we get the most business. Anywhere from 11pm to 3am, you’ll find Zaragoza packed with mad people. People tend to come in here after a night of partying for some good old Mexican drunchies,” Kenney says. (“Drunchies” = drunk munchies.)

This means that not only does Kenney have to stay late on weekends, but she gets to deal with the idiocy of 25-30 year old drunkards, which can be…interesting, to say the least. “More guys usually come in here than chicks…they never get rowdy, but they do ask for my number. It’s a tough life,” Kenney says with a laugh.

Surely a 19-year old college student that works at any kind of restaurant can’t be making that much money however Kenney proves that statement wrong. On a good weekend, she’ll make anywhere from $100-$300 in tips, on top of her minimum wage salary. “My hourly wage isn’t that great, but with tips, I make a good deal of money in a week,” Kenney says.

So if the money and atmosphere is good, what’s the downside to having this job rather than a work-study job? “The hours are kind of a hassle. I don’t know anyone who works 6-10 hour shifts on weekends, into the morning. It’s really tiring on top of school,” Kenney says. Along with that, Kenney doesn’t reap the benefits that most work-study students have with flexible work schedules and employers that understand that school comes first. While the family that Kenney works for understands that she is a student, she finds it difficult to take off work just because she knows that they need the help, since she is the only waitress. Kenney is one of several students at the New School who have found significant difficulty attaining a work-study job.

Another student, who had a similar problem with her work-study award, was 19-year old Parsons student, Hailey Paulson. Paulson, who was awarded $4000.00 for the school year, got her award taken away after thirty days, and several attempts to find a job on campus. “They didn’t even tell me that I had thirty days to find a job! Or maybe they did…but I’m pretty sure it was in the fine print, not something obvious to me or any other student looking for a job,” Paulson said. She sent resumes, applications, e-mails to countless departments and job offerings, and most of the times she never even got a response back. If she did get a response, it was that the position had already been filled much earlier, and that she would be placed on the waiting list.

“The likelihood of me actually getting a job from the waiting list, seemed really unlikely,” Paulson said. “So I had the good luck of finding a weekly babysitting job…but it really doesn’t cut it for me. I get to babysit at the most, twice a week, and that’s only on good weeks. Usually it’s only once a week on weekends, but since its not consistent pay, it’s undependable.”

Paulson, who is great with kids and loves to babysit, says that she loves the family but would rather be working a consistent daily job on campus. In the past couple of weeks, she hasn’t been called by the family, and thus, hasn’t made any money.

“I have an embarrassing amount of money in my bank account. My Mom and I just fought about money today. She thinks I'm making more than I'm actually making. It's kind of hard and it would just be nice to have back-up money from an outside job,” Paulson said. She hasn't been able to go shopping for food in a few weeks, and she says that she'll hold out until the semester finishes out. Her diet has consisted cereal, yogurt, frozen vegetables, and milk, and the only money she has spent recently was on Christmas gifts for her family.

The idea of work-study is that the school helps students who show, financially, that they need the extra money. It’s a comfort, and an assurance, if you will. When that money is taken away from them due to time constraints, their financial woes don’t just disappear as well. Their lives are made far more difficult, because they have to seek work elsewhere, outside school. For Kenney, it was a matter of a couple of weeks that she found the job she needed. But for Paulson, it was a lengthy frustrating process. Finding a job within the city of New York is far different from finding a job within one’s own University.

Eileen Doyle, Assistant Vice President for Student Financial Services, says that while there has been an increase in demand for work-study jobs, especially this year, there has not been an increase in the Federal Work Study, (FWS) funds. It’s a mere issue of too little supply with too much demand. Apparently, this problem with funding was blamed on the poor economy. The spring semester also poses a concern, because transfer students will not be awarded work-study jobs since the budget has already been set aside. Doyle also emphasized the fact that students are advised to work out a schedule with their supervisors to help maintain their work-study award for the entire school year.

When asked how many students have reached 75% of their annual award, Doyle said that the Office of Student Financial Services could not reveal any specific numbers of students affected by policies. She also could not comment on how many students were currently on the waiting list for work-study. Interestingly, Doyle commented on whether or not recently created work study positions would remain unfilled, by saying: “If FWS funds are not available, positions cannot be filled with FWS students.”

However, a staff member from Eugene Lang College (who wished to remain anonymous) offered quite a different perspective.

“There’s a lot of backwards things at this school. It’s not fair to students that are hired to find out that there isn’t more money to support them if they run out of their award. And it puts us as employers in an awkward position, because we no longer have a back-up fund to dip into if their money runs out.” The source was one of what appears to be many other supervisors who were told to hire several students to fill positions that were created for work-study. However, they later found out that while everyone hired would be paid, it offered a shortage of funds for anyone who ran out. “So we have less money being awarded to more students. But is that really better in the long run for us employers? Once their money runs out, we no longer have student workers. It just seems like poor planning. The whole thing is backwards.”

The same anonymous source also shed light on another problem: The role of the OSCE fund. This fund serves the purpose of backing up the University whenever they needed extra money, especially, for FWS. They’re known as discretionary funds, which were drastically cut two years ago. Apparently, the OSCE funds are now only available in emergencies, and it seems that FWS fund shortages, are not considered to be an emergency for students.

One could say that the school has essentially aimed higher than they could reach. To make matters even more complicated, or disorganized for the matter, the anonymous source said that one full-time employee runs the entire work-study office. This explained why it was somewhat difficult to even reach anyone for an interview, in the work-study department.

Students, who are awarded work-study, have exactly thirty days after the start of school, to actually find a job. If they do not find a job, their award is taken away. This was the problem for Kenney, who could not find a job in that amount of time.

“I don’t really plan on quitting my job to appeal my work-study situation. It works for me right now,” Kenney said. “If I had a job on campus though, I’d still get to enjoy being a college student at night on the weekends.”