By Guadalupe Santos-Sanchez, Staff Reporter
There is a hiring freeze at CNM because the funding limit of 300 work positions that are offered were filled at the end of August, said Senior Director of Financial Aid, Lee Carrillo.
“Unfortunately, the allocations have gotten a little bit smaller and the pay has gone up, if you’re paying students more but you’re getting less money then things are going to get tighter as far as positions are concerned, and that’s kind of what we’ve ran into right now,” said Associate Director of Financial Aid, Joseph Ryan.
Students get paid the minimum wage in Albuquerque, which is $8.60, he said.
The hiring limit is because there is a certain amount of money that can be spent, Ryan said.
The award given to CNM is divided into an amount that allows for roughly 300 students to be hired as work studies, he said.
“I think we have a little bit higher than what the calculation might actually kick out, because we know some students don’t work all 40 hours every single two weeks, some students take a week off or only work 10 hours a week,” Ryan said.
There are funds coming in from the federal government, from the state government, and from CNM, Ryan said.
The specific amounts from each are 1.312 million from state, 690 thousand from federal, and 600 thousand from CNM for the 2014-2015 school year, Ryan said.
“The total state and federal funding includes a match that CNM has to make for those funds, 20% for state and 25% for federal,” he said.
In the totals above 20% of the state total is comprised of CNM funds and 25% of the federal total is comprised of CNM funds, he said.
New positions will not be available until the spring but for this term there is no waiting list, Carrillo said.
“There is no one waiting to be hired, we’re glad that we were able to provide these work-study positions to 300 of our students,” he said.
Eloy Chavez, Student Employee at Job Connection Services said that students constantly go into the office to ask for work study employment.
Some students get upset and do not understand, he said, but most realize that just like with jobs outside the school, jobs at CNM are hard to get.
“I continue to help them get their resume started and their application, everything, and when December 11 starts, hit the pavement,” he said.
This is because December 11 is when employment is going to open up again, he said.
Job postings will be available December 1, he said.
However, the employers will not be hiring until next semester, said Amanda Rubio, Supervisor of the Student Employees for Job Connection Services.
“For individuals without a job that’s a long time not to be working so it’s really hard on me to have to turn people down but also hard on me being where I can’t hire a student employee, I do have an open position and I’m not able to hire,” she said.
At Job Connection Services, they assist students and graduates with applying for jobs, Rubio said, and currently they have to turn down a lot of people primarily looking for student employment jobs.
She tells the students that there might still be something outside of CNM, she said, but they are not having any of it.
“They’re looking for a job here on campus for the convenience. They know a lot of employers out there won’t work with the school schedule, so they’re looking for the flexibility that you’re pretty much guaranteed to have with a student employee position,” she said.
Her colleagues and other employers also find themselves with job openings and inability to hire anybody, she said, they are dependent on student employees to get things done, and without them it hinders their job.
Most people think it is Job Connection Services who control student employment because they are the ones having to turn students down but it is dependent on the funds that financial aid has, she said.
“It’s all government funded, and there’s only so much funds to go around, so the students that do qualify for student employment should start looking right away to find a job, because if they procrastinate then their chances of finding a job will go down,” Chavez said.
FAFSA bases its work study qualifying methods largely on low-income criteria and that helps CNM identify who is eligible for work study, Carrillo said.
“Being qualified for work-study allows students to become eligible for work-study positions. Students are selected based largely on who has the greatest needs based on the low-income criteria,” Carrillo said.
Qualifying them does not mean that there is funds to pay them, he said.
“CNM needs to make sure there are enough students eligible for the positions in order to fill the maximum number of positions within the funding limits,” he said.
Work-study is a form of financial aid and it is a part-time job for students on campus, Ryan said, to help them cover the expenses that come with being a student.
Students work up to 20 hours a week and no more than 40 hours every two weeks, he said.
Hiring Freeze; Funding limits available work study positions at CNM
