Cal State Dominguez Hills ran out of federal work-study funds

Students at California State University, Dominguez Hills, who are employed by the Federal Work-Study program will be out of a job March 7.

Officials at the university recently told staff that oversee work-study employees that the program was out of money, so students will no longer be employed in it, according to an email shared with Inside Higher Ed.

The university’s director of financial aid and scholarships, Danny Duong, wrote the email and attributed the shortfall to an increased number of students receiving work-study appointments as compared to previous years, as well as increases to California’s minimum wage. But he also claimed that some in the program had been overpaid and other students had received work-study funds without being approved for those roles.

Duong did not respond to a request for comment. In a statement, university spokesperson Lily McKibbin wrote that the shortfall was caused by inaccurate projections and a higher number of students than anticipated accepting their work-study awards. She said she could not comment on the other reasons provided in Duong’s email, as the university is still investigating the matter.

“The university is investigating the reasons behind this unexpected increase in use of Federal Work-Study funds and will update its protocols and controls in the future to address unforeseen student demand,” the statement read. “CSUDH deeply regrets this funding shortfall’s impact on our students and is committed to working with those affected to address financial needs.”

The error leaves CSUDH’s work-study employees in the lurch. The Federal Work-Study program is targeted at students considered to have a high financial need, as determined by the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, and most of the participants at CSUDH rely on these part-time posts to pay for food, rent and tuition. Now, they’re scrambling to find new jobs—an especially arduous task for students who don’t have the transportation they would need to travel to an off-campus job—or are hoping their departments might miraculously find funds to continue employing them.

That’s where things stand for Julianna Ortega, a junior who currently holds a student assistantship in the university’s labor studies department through the work-study program. The role is her only source of income, and she uses the money to pay rent on her off-campus apartment, as well as other living expenses. Now, she said, her boss is trying to figure out if there is a way to continue to fund her position, which is the only student role in the department.

“When I first heard it, I was caught off guard, because I didn’t completely understand what was happening,” she said. “And now I’m pretty pissed off about it, just because I have looked through the reasons why the funding [was] supposedly quickly exhausted, and it’s just not really making sense to me.”

Worse yet, it’s not even the first time she’s had her student employment ripped out from under her. A role she held at La Casita, a campus resource center for Latino students, was eliminated at the end of last academic year when a California state program similar to work-study ended, prompting her to move to her position with the labor studies department.

A CSUDH employee who works with work-study participants and spoke with Inside Higher Ed on the condition of anonymity to preserve her job said that she is worried about how the loss of income will impact students. She knows of one student, for example, who uses his work-study income to cover the cost of commute to his internship, and he is now worried he may lose that role, too.

“I’m devastated. I feel for them,” she said. “The particular cruelty of this happening two weeks before midterms—do you think these kids are going to perform at their best? I wouldn’t. I’d be a hot mess.”

The employee also said that her department is severely understaffed and will suffer without the help of student employees. Ortega, similarly, is the middle of several projects—including planning an annual Labor, Social and Environmental Justice Fair that is now in its 17th year at the university—and she’s not sure who will take over if she loses her job.

“I’m in the middle of getting people to come to campus, getting workshops ready, booking rooms—I’m in the middle of doing all of this work that I’ve been working for months to make happen. And honestly [I] don’t know what’s going to happen,” she said.