Financial aids for NIU students might have been one reason for the dozens of recent on-campus student job vacancies, but new financial aid regulations could prove to be a cure.

Several on-campus student employers, including those in Founders Memorial Library and NIU Food Service, have noted a substantial decrease in the number of students taking jobs, starting with a large drop last fall.

George Nenonen, library personnel and business manager, attributes the job vacancy problem partly to financial aid opportunities available to students. “With the current financial aid situation, more students are eligible for loans, so they don’t want to work if they don’t have to.”

Jerry Augsburger, director of NIU’s Financial Aid Office, said the requirement of an early indication for loan desire also has proved a hindrance.

“Students must indicate (whether they want loans) so early that, when school starts, the loan has already been processed,” he said. By that time, a student receiving a loan might not see a reason for working while at school.

Loans are easier to obtain in part because under a revised congressional methodology for determining financial aid recipients, student job earnings now are treated differently.

Augsburger said, “For many years, there was an automatic expectation that students wanting financial aid would bring a certain amount of earnings from summer employment. The expected amounts used to be $700 for freshmen and $900 for continuing or transfer students, but this year, that has been done away with.

“This year, student loans are as easy to get as last year, but there have been changes in regulations that may work to help stimulate more student jobs filling up,” Augsburger said.

A change deals with how employment relates to campus-based aid. Previously, a working student on aid had a set financial aid eligibility limit of earnings. After the student reached that limit, he was automatically taken off the payroll.

Augsburger said the new system uses students’ base year earnings from the most recent tax year. In determining aid eligibility now, students are expected to continue to be able to earn the same income as the previous year, while 70 percent of that amount is considered as “built-in, self-help” earnings designated strictly for educational costs. For example, a student earning $3,000 in 1987 would be expected to earn $3,000 again in 1988, with $2,100 being set aside specifically for education.

At the point where a student earns his eligibility limit now, he is not required to immediately quit his job. Augsburger said, “Students’ hiring departments can now switch them over to departmental funds for payroll so they can continue working.”

The financial aids office now monitors only work-study employment this way. Under the work-study program, 80 percent of students’ salaries are paid by the federal government while the university pays the remaining 20 percent.

Students working on “regular,” or non-self-help employment, are not subject to monitoring regulations.

“The new approach may be helpful in keeping jobs filled because employers do not want to hire students with a small eligibility rate. They want to be able to train people for jobs who can work for them all year,” Augsburger said.

Robert Frederickson, director of NIU Food Services, said incentive programs might help to fill some student job vacancies. He said, for example, the starting rate for food service employees was raised from $3.35 to $3.50 an hour.

Another work incentive established this semester by food services is an employee meal program for off-campus students. Student workers living off-campus previously were not allowed to eat in the cafeterias they worked in but may now obtain cafeteria meals for 50 percent off the regular guest meal rate.

However, Food Services Student Manager Jerry Arshem, who works in the Grant Towers South residence hall cafeteria, questioned the overall effectiveness of the incentives.

“I think the increased salary only helped people who were already questioning whether they should work, or who were returning to their jobs from the spring, to make a decision,” he said. “It didn’t really draw any new employees.”