Dozens of campus jobs went unfilled last year because there were not enough students who wanted to take them, and they are likely to remain vacant.

Student Employment Coordinator Melody Amundsen said last month there are about 80 unfilled work-study jobs. Under the work-study program, students receive 80 percent of their salary from the federal government while NIU pays the remaining 20 percent.

Students who apply for financial aid are asked whether they want to take part in the work-study program, Amundsen said. However, many students are opting for student loans rather than work.

“It has become easy for students to get student loans,” Amundsen said. “We are trying to educate students and remind them that they have to repay loans.”

With fewer work-study employees available, departments will have to pay 100 percent of their students’ salaries or hire fewer students. “Some of the departments are dependent on (federal) funds,” Amundsen said.

Work-study jobs started to go vacant last year. “It’s been just this past year students haven’t had to go to the bank (to get a loan),” Amundsen said.

She said students today have to indicate they want a loan on a financial aid form. Sometimes students do not go to a bank until after they have the loan.

Some of the 280 employees at Founders Memorial Library are on the work-study program. George Nenonen, personnel and business manager at the library, said in July that the shortage of work-study employees will have a “substantial effect” on the library’s $300,000 student payroll budget.

The library has not had a severe shortage of workers, but the turnover rate has increased, Nenonen said. The library also has had difficulty getting enough workers during holiday periods.

Jobs in NIU’s food service are becoming vacant as well. The starting salary for employees in food service will rise from $3.35 an hour to $3.50 an hour this fall in an effort to get more students to take food service jobs, said Robert Frederickson, University Food Services director.

NIU is considering other incentives such as discounted or free meals for employees, Frederickson said. However, ideas to confront the shortage are costly, he said.

NIU food service employs about 1,000 students with an annual payroll budget of about $870,000, Frederickson said. He said the increase in the starting salary might raise the payroll budget by as much as 4 percent, depending on how many jobs are vacant.

The extent of the shortage varies in each residence hall. One hall had as many as 16 percent of the jobs vacant at certain times, Frederickson said.

Managers have to work extra hours to fill in when jobs are vacant, he said. Sometimes extra help is recruited through university personnel.

While the shortage at NIU was less severe than at the University of Illinois-Champaign and other schools in the nation, several jobs might remain vacant this fall, Frederickson said.

Alex Lutovsky, staff assistant at U of I residence hall food service, said last month that the school has implemented incentives including free meals and higher pay to attract more students to the job.

U of I had difficulty filling positions last fall, Lutovsky said. Students found easier work and higher pay off campus. Food service is “kind of hard and can be hectic.”

U of I also has set up tables at freshman orientation to persuade students to apply for food service jobs, Lutovsky said.