Ohio college students fight for higher on-campus wages
By Hevin Wilkey/Kent State NewsLab
Ohio students are urging their universities to increase campus wages. Earlier this year, Ohio raised the minimum wage from $10.10 to $10.45 an hour, and it will be raised to $10.70 on Jan. 1, 2025. Some students say they need more to better support themselves.
“It would relieve a lot of stress to not have to worry about what is going to happen if you buy one too many cups of coffee that week, or if you change your Spotify subscription, or you need a new backpack and you just don’t have to worry about counting the pennies in your wallet to make sure that it’s something you can afford,” said Nica-Emmanuel Delgado, vice president of Kent State’s chapter of the Ohio Student Association. OSA is a political student organization that advocates for accessible and affordable higher education, along with other issues of interest to college students in the state.
Not only has Delgado worked multiple on-campus jobs, the senior anthropology major also works off campus. Despite all the jobs and splitting rent with their partner, Delgado said they sometimes struggle to afford everyday necessities like gas, rent and groceries.
Efforts to raise wages for student workers at some schools have been somewhat successful. For example, in winter 2022, students at Ohio State University protested on-campus wages, demanding $15 an hour. By the start of 2024, the university decided to raise its minimum wage to $13 an hour after researching market rates and setting a goal to retain student employees.
This summer Kent State’s United Students Against Sweatshops succeeded in getting the university to raise wages for resident assistants from $500 to $1,730 per semester through campaigning and meeting with administrators.
Every year MIT produces a living wage calculator for the entire United States. For Ohio, one adult with no children should make at least $19.40 an hour to live, nearly $9 above the minimum wage.
OSA’s Delgado said they aren’t asking for something as high as the $19 an hour livable wage, but the goal is for students to feel less stressed.
As much as students fight for livable wages, sometimes it isn’t in university budgets, said Sandy Baum, higher education economist and senior fellow at the Urban Institute.
“They have to figure out where the money is going to come from and they have to make choices about how to allocate their budgets,” Baum said. “I think taking all of those things into consideration is really important in terms of figuring out what the solutions are to make students better off.”
She also said that universities might have to choose between lower wages for more workers or higher wages for fewer workers, ultimately increasing each employee’s workload.
In United Students Against Sweatshops Kent State chapter chair Madison McCartha’s opinion, the overall workload is already too intense. She has talked with various professors and Faculty Senate about the correlation between student grades and the burden of working one or several jobs. The students who are most impacted by their finances also struggle with academics.
“Students who come from better-off backgrounds or have higher paying jobs sometimes are able to allow themselves a little bit more grace to work, because if they have to miss a shift or any of these different things, it’s not the end of the world for them,” McCartha said. “We see that that stress really reduces your academic performance, and again, as an institution of higher learning, we want to prioritize learning.”
Despite potentially lower wages, there is still a major appeal for students to work on campus.
Many campuses offer flexibility for their students’ jobs based around their schedule and time of year. Universities understand that students should only work a certain number of hours to make sure they can still focus on studying while also being able to give them breaks according to the calendar. Not working during breaks or holidays is another plus for many students. And students without their own transportation don’t have to travel far to work.
When McCartha worked on her campus, she was making around 40 cents more than the state minimum wage at the time, which was $10.10, and eventually switched to another campus job that paid her around $11.
She said even with the aid of the higher wages, which she appreciated, her funds were still lacking.
“Myself and my colleagues were, and some of them still are, donating plasma to make their bills and pay for food,” McCartha said. “It was still not quite enough for the things that I needed at times.”
Hevin Wilkey wrote this article for Kent State NewsLab. This collaboration is produced in association with Media in the Public Interest and funded in part by the George Gund Foundation.