In today's higher education system, students are allowed to work a job on campus. This provides those of us without transportation the means of living we need. However, there are many things wrong with this system.

My name is Annie, and I'm a work study student for the theatre here at ICC's campus. I get paid $7.25 an hour without any hope to ever get a raise doing what I'm doing, no matter how well I do it. I am only allowed to work 14 hours a week, which equals 400 dollars a month. It's not terrible, and it's enough for rent, but the problem lies when there's more work that needs to be done, the other 2 work study students have disappeared, and I'm asked to pull a 10 hour shift on a Friday when I've already done 10 hours in the week. I am now giving 6 hours of my time to the theatre for free. This comes out to be 43 dollars worth that I'm not allowed to be paid, but instead the work study students who lie on their time sheet are. That's a pretty nice walmart trip for free.

My friend's name is Jill. Having a job here on campus would help her IMMENSLY, because she lives far away and pays a lot of money in gas going from her job to her school to home. But she's not allowed to have any opportunity for work study, because her parents make too much money.

If we were allowed the opportunity for competitive pay, then our work study could be treated like a real job. We would be interviewed, put in a job application, seen for what we do instead of just a body showing up to get paid. There would be the potential reward of raises when we continuously do good work and the penalty of possibly being fired if not a person doesn't show up for work. Competitive pay means that those who are under the maintenance section of the school will have their pay compared to other jobs in the area that pay maintenance workers. Likewise with positions in the areas of secretary, janitorial, librarian, ect. It would give people more motivation to actually show up and do good work, instead of simply turn in a time sheet that exaggerates the time they worked.

In this case, competition against each other is what would guarantee that all of us with a work study would do good quality work, instead of putting work off on the people that aren't only there for a pay check.