Vice President for Finance Frank Simio does not foresee the New York State’s minimum wage increase affecting Fordham in the future.

“All our minimum wage workers are student workers,” Simio said.

According to Rose Marie Raiano, senior assistant director of the Office of Student Employment, Fordham’s Student Employment increased its baseline pay to student workers from $7.40 to $8 an hour at the beginning of the 2013-2014 academic year. This change coincided with New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s state minimum wage raise which will increase the minimum wage incrementally to $9 an hour by the end of 2015.

However, while minimum wage is rising, funds for the federal work study program are decreasing.

“I can only speak to our Federal Work-Study funding, which over the years since the 2009-2010 academic year, has been decreased by $1.1 million,” Raiano said.

“We have just fewer than 700 students that are paid the minimum wage, about 600 of them are employed out of the Student Employment office,” Simio said.

“Ideally we want to service as many students as possible… how we are going to manage that has not been decided,” Raiano said. She acknowledged the fact that the office must stay within their budget limitations, yet no decisions have been made on cutting back the number of positions available for student workers.

The Student Employment office will fulfill obligations to students who receive work study as part of their package first. Students that apply for jobs through the Student Employment office who have not received work study as part of their package are called alternate applicants.

“Despite our funding situation, we have still been able to provide student workers to all our service and academic areas throughout our university and we would hope to continue to do so to service as many students as possible,” Raiano said.

According to the Office of Student Employment, student worker wages range from $8 to $16 an hour during the academic school year and $8.40 to $16 an hour during the summer session.

“Student worker wages are determined by the job responsibilities, duties and skills required to do the job,” Raiano said.

The Office of Student Employment does not plan to increase their baseline pay higher than the minimum wage.

Simio said, “College students generally are not working to support themselves. College students are working to get an education and any work they do is helping them cover personal expenses, covering books or tuition or entertainment.

“Personally, when I think of a living wage, I think of a person who is working for a living full time, maybe even working to support a family. I’m not sure that concept is one that usually applies to full time students.”

Associate Professor of Economics Janis Barry said, “It makes sense that students who are so motivated that they are not only going to school, but they are working in order to help pay off their debts and not borrow as much, should be given a reasonable wage for reasonable work.”

A reasonable wage for Barry is $10.10. “If we were to correct minimum wage according to the consumer price index and the cost of living, $10.10 is the lowest minimum wage that should be established,” Barry said.

Vanessa Collado, FCLC ’17, has a work study assignment off campus with a private after school program. “I look after kids grades K-3 and meet with two individual students for tutoring time. I currently get paid $8.90 per hour. I guess that’s ok but I think I should get a bit more because I have to commute to their school, and working with kids is always stressful, no matter how well they behave,” Collado said.

“I don’t mind the pay as much because I enjoy working with the kids, but who wouldn’t prefer more money?” Collado said.