Students will still be able to find jobs on campus even after the undergraduate student body expands by 800, administrators say -— even though they have no plans to increase the number of jobs available.
About half of the new students brought by the new residential colleges will have to work on-campus jobs to meet their term-time student employment expectations, a condition for all students receiving financial aid. But despite rumblings that the University could not support the increase in on-campus job demands, Yale has enough jobs available to satisfy students’ needs without having to add more, according to Director of Financial Aid Caesar Storlazzi. As of Sept. 22, there were 311 positions open for student jobs on campus, Storlazzi said; there are typically about 100 available by April 1.
“Based on current employment trends … we believe there will be ample jobs for those students who want them,” Storlazzi said.
Storlazzi said that last year, only 70 percent of students on financial aid held on-campus jobs, and those students on average worked less than five hours a week. Assuming a comparable percentage of students receiving financial aid work on-campus jobs in four years, an estimate using Storlazzi’s data leaves a surplus of about 30 open jobs.
Additionally, of the 3,280 undergraduates who held on-campus jobs last year, 40 percent — or about 1,300 students — did not receive financial aid. Because students on financial aid are given priority for on-campus jobs, they will always be able to find a job in case of a shortage, Storlazzi. And he maintained that such a shortage is unlikely.
The clarification on student job supply comes as administrators begin to release concrete plans and data to assuage concerns faculty have expressed about the college expansion.
On Wednesday, top administrators in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and Yale College released a report addressing various faculty worries, including the issue of student finances and jobs. The administrators noted that the Provost’s Office had done an “extensive survey” of University units, including the Student Financial and Administrative Services, to determine plans of action in light of the expansion.
“Student employment and the availability of student jobs are issues that we have examined closely in the past and will continue to do so as the size of the Yale College student body grows,” Storlazzi said.
Yale College Dean Jonathan Holloway told the News that a perceived shortage of jobs may be the result of many students vying for a certain small pool of jobs.
“We have enough campus jobs for the college expansion,” Holloway said. “It is the classic problem where we have enough seminars for everyone to get into one, but sometimes people only want to get into that one seminar.”
Holloway added that the University has a planned structure and process for student jobs, but that some students go around the process and find jobs through friendship networks or take on non-campus jobs. This makes the calculation and management of student jobs more difficult, Holloway said.
Despite the administration’s assurances, students interviewed said finding an on-campus job was already hard enough without having to deal with increased competition, even if there are technically enough jobs available.
Sophia Normark ’17, who has worked at Bass and Sterling Libraries since her freshman year, said she did not hear back from many of the jobs she applied for through the central database when she first got to Yale. It took her about a month to find a job, she said, and she was able to only after speaking with one of the workers in the library personally.
Darby Mowell ’18, who does not receive financial aid from Yale, said she could not find a job her freshman year. She said the quantity of applicants means that students have to be persistent to find employment.
“I applied to literally dozens of jobs this year and got a total of four interviews, half of which I then got rejections for,” Mowell said. “Getting a student job isn’t impossible, but it takes a lot of persistence and a lot of willingness to stomach rejection.”