All student workers employed by the Student Employment Office (SEO) are now only permitted to work a maximum of 10 hours per week. The change went into effect on Feb. 22, and students were informed of the change via email nine days prior, on Feb. 13. Prior to the change, students were permitted to work up to 15 hours per week in some positions, according to the Student Employment webpage.  

An email from SEO stated that approximately 1,300 students across both the Rose Hill and Lincoln Center campuses are employed by the office. Following the announcement of the change, student workers have started to consider how the hours cut will impact their daily lives.

Liliana Kinnan, GSB ’25, has been working as a desk assistant at the Rose Hill Ram Fit Center for just under a year and was working about 13 hours per week prior to the cut. She also works an unpaid internship at a non-profit organization that she fears she may have to quit due to the student employee hours reduction.

“I’m currently working at a non-profit internship on Fridays which has been something I wanted to do to do volunteer hours, and I was able to do that because I had my work schedule,” Kinnan said. “But now with the hours cut, I think I might have to get a second job and then I don’t know if I’m going to be able to continue to do that volunteering work.

Kinnan also noted that the short notice about the change is posing its own difficulties. 

“It’s just a huge inconvenience because with the short time notice to rearrange my entire schedule in the middle of the semester is just very inconsiderate of student employees,” she said. “I felt it was a very bad show of administration to only give people less than two weeks to figure out how they’re going to make up that separate income.”

Cecilia Lodge, FCRH ’27, echoed similar sentiments.

“I definitely have to be more conscious about my spending because it’s like a hundred to two hundred dollars every two weeks that I can’t make,” said Lodge, who has been working at the Office for Student Involvement since last fall. “It was definitely a minor blow that I wasn’t expecting.”

Assuming a student employee was working the maximum 15 hours permitted prior to the cut, the hours reduction results in a potential decrease of $75 a week or $150 per pay period when factoring in the raise in minimum wage.

Director of Financial Aid Technology and Operations Michael Szabo wrote in an email on Feb. 25 that the cut in student hours is a direct result of a recently announced reduction in federal funding.

“The Department of Education has announced our tentative funding levels for Campus Based Institutional Aid (Federal Work-Study and SEOG [Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant]) for 2025-2026,” Szabo wrote. “Federal Work-Study was reduced by approximately $550,000 from FY [fiscal year] 25. We have seen a decrease of approximately $1,165,000 over the last two years. This represents a 25% decrease in our funding.”

The money that Fordham receives through Campus-Based Institutional Aid is portioned off for specific purposes, and the university relies on that federal funding to employ students in work-study programs. According to publicly available financial statements from Fordham, the university received $2,077,320 from the Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant Program (SEOG) and $3,002,870 in Federal Work-Study Program money during fiscal year 2023. As indicated by Szabo’s email statement, these amounts have decreased substantially since then.

Szabo also noted that the recent New York State minimum wage increase in January and the rise in the hours students were working also played a role in the decision. He stated in the same email that the decision was the result of a consensus among multiple administrative offices but did not elaborate on exactly which Fordham offices were involved.

According to Szabo, SEO has not taken any other steps to reduce the cost of employing student workers; however, the change in hours does coincide with changes in Public Safety hiring practices. Public Safety Parking Operations Manager Vicente Audifre III said he received word on Feb. 5 that the office would not be permitted to hire any more students for the spring semester.

Audifre also spoke about the number of students who have inquired about working for Public Safety. 

“I have students asking all the time for work, and even before this order came down I was actually turning students away because I have so many wanting to work for Public Safety,” he said.

Public Safety is one of a few departments on campus where current student employees have been less affected by the hours cut. Theresa Gormley, FCRH ’26, who works as a Fordham security student aide for Public Safety, said that she and her co-workers are still working up to 15 hours a week.

According to an email sent to Ram Van drivers shortly after the initial announcement, student drivers and other student Ram Van employees are also unaffected by the hours cut. 

Other students employed by Fordham University can contact their immediate supervisor to determine whether or not the hours reduction affects them.