Mirror - Vol. 36, No. 23 - April 13, 2011

              C=3o
C=to
•
r RLE I Take one THElrfMlRROR.
Week of April 13,2011 | Vol. 36, isS 16
fairfieldmirror.com
(■Independent Student Newspapei
of Fairfield University
The Reflection of Fairfield
WorkStudyNot PayingWhat ItUsedTo
■ Cuts to the Federal Work Study Grant means less financial aid for student
employees and fewer offers for work study positions for incoming freshmen
Thomas McKiver/lhe Mirror
Melanie Cannon is busy at her work-study job at the DiMenna-Nyselius Library.
BY GABRIELLA TUTINO
EXECUTIVE EDITOR
Melanie Cannon '12, works at the
Center for Academic Excellence in the
DiMenna-Nyselius Library as an office
assistant. She landed the job through
Fairfield's work-study program, and uses
the money she earns to pay for food and
other school-related expenses. For Can-non
and other students part of the work-study
program, a part-time job helped
ease the financial burden of living at
Fairfield University.
"I think work study is a great option
for college students because it is an
on-Gampus job that caters to a college
student's schedule," said Cannon. "There
are great work-study jobs across campus
in a wide variety of departments as well."
But on March 30th, the Financial
Aid Office emailed work-study students
announcing a significant cut in federal
work-study funding for the upcoming
academic year.
The email stated that, "Fairfield
recendy received its estimated 2011 -12
federal work-study allocation and... [it]
has again been decreased."
"I'm mad that they're cutting the
money I need to survive at Fairfield,"
Cannon said. "Since freshman year... it
is the money I use for expenses."
The Economics
According to the U.S. Department
Education, the Federal Work Study (FWS)
program provides funds to students
through part-time employment in order to
help them with the cost ofpostsecondary
education. The money is awarded in the
form of a grant. Students who accept fed-eral
work-study have the option to select a
part-time job from the list of offerings ad-vertised
on Fairfield University's website.
In 2008, Fairfield's FWS program
consisted of 513 participating students,
but thanks to a 25% addition to the FWS
funding through the 2009 American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the pro-gram
expanded to 640 student employ-ees,
according to Erin Chiaro, Director of
WORK STUDY CUTS~j ma, 3
BY EVAN MURPHY
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Over the past several months, the
Fairfield University Budget Committee
has been hard at work developing the
university's budget for the upcoming
school year. Yesterday afternoon, Fair-field
University held its annual budget
meeting at the Barone Campus Center
where concerned and curious students
were able to better understand the bud-geting
process, or so they thought.
University President Father Jeffrey
von Arx and Vice President of Finance
and Treasurer Julie Dolan explained
their strategic plan for budget balanc-ing
for the upcoming year. The Budget
Committee, comprised of the university
president, administration, faculty, and
a student body representative assured
students at the meeting that they remain
optimistic with their budget for the
2011-2012 school year.
With a very frustrated student body
in the audience, the question and answer
period was arguably the most interesting
part of the presentation. Students pre
sented concerns with increased
financial obligations for the
students as a means to 'budget
balance!
One of the major issues presented
was Gov. Dan Malloy's proposed cut to
the Connecticut Independent College
Student Grant program, also known as
CICS. The CICS program provides grant
money for college students in Connecti-cut
to attend in-state private schools.
With pressure from the intended
cut, Fairfield has replaced $400,000 of
state financial support with university
funding in the case that the governor
should cut a portion of the program's
funding. They hope to alleviate some of
the financial burden placed on students.
Students were also upset with
the 4 percent tuition, room and board
increase, which would raise tuition to
$52,000 for the upcoming school year.
With the governor's proposed plan loom-ing
overhead, students are left wonder-ing
how they could possibly pay without
the assistance of grant money.
Freshman Liam Josephson was con-cerned
with one of the minor topics dis-cussed.
The university plans to increase
the amount of money charged to register
cars on campus as a means of budget
balancing. "I mean this is one of the less
significant issues they discussed, but I
feel like this is something that students
could control. The fact that, not only am
I not allowed to have a car on campus,
but now I'll have to pay extra in following
years on top of tuition is just ridiculous."
Another widespread issue was the
seeming possibility that there may no
longer be "beach living" for seniors
during their Fairfield career. Josephson
commented, "The PowerPoint showed
that they weren't taking on many more
students then they have in past years, so
what does that mean? They are going to
have to fill those new dorms that no one
wanted and they aren't going to let se-niors
off until they're filled. It just doesn't
make sense."
Fairfield projected that the incom-ing
freshman class size for the 2011-2012
year would be about 960 students, no
significant size difference from previ-ous
years. The university also predicted
that the full time undergraduate amount
would be about 3,269 students, again
no significant size difference from past
years.
More students equal more revenue
for Fairfield, which is exacdy what the
university needs during this time of
economic uncertainty. The more stu-dents
that remain on campus, the more
revenue Fairfield can put back into its
budget, but this concept does not come
without concerns for administration.
When asked what some of the things
that scared her the most were about this
upcoming year, Vice President of Fi-nance
Julie Dolan responded that one of
the most prevalent thoughts that "keeps
her up at night" is the ability of students
and families to afford Fairfield. Although
she was more optimistic than not, she
said this was still one of the things that
she has to worry about the most.
The meeting ended in a somewhat
dispirited fashion. Many of the students
appeared more confused leaving then
they did when they first entered the
meeting.
INDEX
Opinion • Page 9
The Vine • Page 11
Coffee Break • Page 19
Sports • Page 24
OPINION:
ONLINE
EDUCATION
P. 10
NEWS:
LOCAL BORDERS
BOOKSTORE
CLOSING PG.2
STAGSTOCK
PREVIEW P. 12
os=3
oc=3 1
w%
Tuition Increasing, Students Frustrated HL^
os=3
ott
r_
oȣ=3