Yasmine Halmane

After sending a petition with more than 600 signatures to the University, incoming first-year counselors won their battle for full room and board.

Dean of Student Affairs Hannah Peck announced on June 30 that incoming FroCos’ compensation would be raised next year to cover the cost of full room and board. It is the final compensation adjustment this year after an initial pay raise in April. FroCos began to call for higher wages in March.

“This win not only gives FroCos the financial resources they need to fully dedicate themselves to the job, but it also makes us feel valued as student leaders,” said Cynthia Sutanto ’24, head FroCo for Pauli Murray College. “Knowing that Yale’s administration recognizes the importance of our work is really energizing.”

Yale FroCos United, a group that describes itself as representing the full incoming class of FroCos, launched a petition on May 28 calling for administrators to raise their pay to cover room and board. In the petition, they demanded that administrators increase communication and transparency with FroCos regarding major policy decisions.

On June 26, the group sent the petition to the University with 657 signatures — marking 80 percent of incoming FroCos.

“We want to make sure that no FroCo has to pay to do their job, given how important it is to the university ecosystem,” said incoming Murray FroCo MeiLan Haberl ’25. “I do think that having full room and board is going to allow more people who would be wonderful FroCos but can’t because of financial restrictions to even apply for the job. I think that this is going to make a really positive change.”

FroCos initially brought up concerns over pay as early as the first night of training on March 31. After that meeting, Peck wrote to FroCos that the administration would conduct an assessment of FroCo compensation and keep FroCos updated about its progress.

The administration granted FroCos a $1,000 raise on April 21, but students continued to call for higher wages.

Head FroCos from each residential college also met with Peck, Yale College Dean Pericles Lewis and Dean of Student Life Melanie Boyd on May 10. At that meeting, administrators said they could not grant full room and board due to budgetary limitations but were open to continuously reassessing pay.

Instead, administrators emphasized the need for FroCos to set boundaries with their first years so they only work approximately nine to 15 hours a week.

“The main consensus we got from that meeting was that FroCos cannot be paid higher because of university budget constraints but that FroCos should just work less,” Sutanto told the News last month. “In particular, the deans emphasized the need for FroCos to create boundaries for themselves so that they do not feel overworked.”

After seeing the “unusually large” size of the class of 2027, the University gave FroCos another raise on June 2.

Wages for FroCos come in the form of a stipend for room and board and were previously based on the FroCo team size for each residential college. According to the terms of the 2023-24 contract, “The larger the college team size relative to their first-year incoming class, the lower the expected hours, and hence, the lower compensation.”

In June, Peck told the News that while the administration was able to raise FroCo wages in late April and again on June 2, it needed a full year to complete a review of the FroCo program and compensation before making additional changes.

But in a June 30 email to incoming FroCos obtained by the News, Peck said that the University would “reverse the order of the review process” by granting full room and board before the program review that was originally planned for the coming semester.

According to Peck, “very few” members of the class of 2027 decided to take gap years or postpone their enrollment, and the class remains “significantly larger” than expected. Given the “immediate needs” of the upcoming year, the administration decided to give FroCos full room and board in advance.

“Our hope has always been to move the program towards offering full room and board to all FroCos,” Peck wrote. “I want to stress that this represents a significant investment both from the college and from the university in the FroCo program.”

While the increased compensation was not explicitly stated to be applicable for future classes of FroCos, United FroCos at Yale said in an announcement that they are “committed to ensuring Yale commits to full room and board for all future FroCos.” Peck did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the matter.

The administration still plans to conduct its review of the FroCo program this fall, Peck added. While the pay raise to cover full room and board will remain, Peck wrote that FroCos should “expect some of the job responsibilities to shift” during the semester.

“It’s not really clear what the review of the position means or what us having input means, but our hope is to ensure that full room and board will go forward to future FroCos as well,” Haberl said. “I have huge amounts of gratitude to everybody who signed and shared. We genuinely could not have done this without a community effort.”

Most first-year students and their FroCos live on the University’s Old Campus.