“ For Federal Work-Study employees, we pay $7.75 – $12.00 per hour depending on the job and the responsibilities required. “West Chester values its student employees and we provide the best compensation level that we can,” said Nancy Nancy Santos Gainer, executive director of the university’s Office of Communications. In response, a WCU spokeswoman said that the school does its best to pay decent swags for those who work on campus. A kick off to the campaign is scheduled to be held Thursday, Feb. PSPN is collaborating with United Students Against Sweatshops, whose national #15onCampus campaign has raised the wage to $15 at Columbia, NYU, and the University of Washington-Seattle. Meanwhile, most student and campus workers receive poverty wages for work-study, food service, subcontract work, and other campus work, the group contends. Group members say the result has been greater student debt – over $30,000 for every graduating student in Pennsylvania, the second most of any state. I shouldn’t be struggling just to study here.”Īccording to the student group, over the past five years tuition and fees at state universities have gone up more than 20 percent, thanks in part to what it calls misleading “pay-per-credit hour” schemes. “I have the stress of being a full-time worker and a full-time student and am still barely making it. “I’m fighting for living wages because it’s unfair that I need two jobs, at a minimum, to support myself at school,” said Nahje “Jay” Yancy, a West Chester University sophomore from Philadelphia and PSPN leader. The group calls itself the Pennsylvania Student Power Network (PSPN), a loose organization that grew out of last year’s faculty strike at the SSHE campuses. They have joined a new but vocal group of those who attend the schools in the state’s 14-university State System of Higher Education (SSHE), including those at neighboring Millersville University in Lancaster and Cheyney University in Delaware County. WEST CHESTER > Students at West Chester University are joining with others across the state to demand a raise in minimum wage for them and other campus workers, as well as for a five-year tuition freeze.