The school’s student work study wages have increased from the long time rate of $7.50 to a more respectable $9.50.

The person responsible for the rate increase is Financial Aid Office Worker, Donna Wilkoski, who attended Bucks in 1977 and worked as a work-study student in 1979.

Wilkoski had requested in June of this year to have the wages increased, and it was passed and approved in August.

When asked what made her decide to make such a change, Wilkoski stated, “work study is such a great opportunity. I saw students getting higher paying off-campus jobs, and we needed to be competitive with what they were offering.”

She went on to explain how she wanted more students to be involved in the work study program, and how when asked, students said they didn’t apply because they had higher paying jobs elsewhere.

“I just wanted to bump it up…we needed to be competitive,” she included.

One such person to go into the work study program is the Centurion’s very own editor-in-chief Shannon Harrar, a sophomore journalism major.

Harrar stated, “the pay increase wasn’t a factor in the decision to join work study…but it is a motivation to join since I’ll be doing the work and putting in the time.”

The work study program offers a very flexible work schedule that can be formed around your school schedule, and the twenty hour work weeks still gives you time to complete school work done and have a social life.

When asked whether money earned from work study would mess with financial aid, Wilkoski responded, “the money you earn isn’t counted toward financial aid. It’s essentially free money that’s sitting around.”

Many students don’t sign up, one of those reasons may be that many students don’t know that they’re eligible, or they just don’t know about the program at all.

“It’s not really advertised, it’d be more helpful to advertise it more so people know about it.” said Harrar.

Hopefully with this new wage increase, and a bit more advertising, more students will know about the work study and apply because, as Wilkoski said during her interview, “I hope that more students do the work study program, because it’s not just a great opportunity to get involved with the school, but there are statistics that actually show that those who do work study actually get better grades in school.”