Student workers at the University of Mississippi are struggling to pay their bills working the maximum number of hours allotted per week, even with hourly wages higher than the state minimum wage.
Luisa Sánchez, a junior civil engineering major from Bogotà, Colombia, juggles three on-campus jobs: She is a teaching assistant for an engineering course, a math tutor and a lab research assistant.
“Even when maximizing my hours, my monthly salary will be almost entirely spent on rent,” Sánchez said. “This is concerning to me because everything in Oxford is just getting more expensive, but I will be getting the same amount of money as if the prices did not change.”
The university sets a maximum of 25 hours per week for domestic students, but for international students like Sánchez, they are limited to 20 hours by their visa requirements. From there, individual departments, at their own discretion, decide what student wages will be.
Whereas Sánchez once worked only 10 hours a week to focus on school, she picked up additional jobs to afford living in Oxford. Although she is among the highest-paid student workers at the university, earning $15 per hour at each job, roughly 90% of her monthly income still goes to rent alone.
Sánchez is one of many student workers struggling to afford living in an increasingly expensive college town. While the university minimum student wage is $9 an hour, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Living Wage Calculator finds that a living wage for one adult to cover basic expenses in Lafayette County is more than double that, at $23.14.
For some student workers, the gap in wages is something they feel every day.
How the system works
There are nearly 1,900 student workers on campus. Under the UM’s current system, the Department of Human Resources sets the campus-wide minimum wage at $9 per hour — a rate the university has increased to in the past five years from the $7.25 federal minimum wage, according to Bryce Drew, UM director of compensation, recruiting and HR business partners.
Currently, across all departments, the average hourly student pay is $11.70. Although the structure does not necessarily prohibit higher pay, Drew said, human resources pauses and reviews a department’s decision to pay students more than $15 an hour, which is the approximate wage of the university’s lowest-paid employees.
With yearly reevaluation, he explained, university budget officials and senior leaders decide whether it is appropriate to raise the minimum.
“Since the chancellor has been in his role, he consistently advocates for salary and wages,” Drew said, calculating that the 24% raise from the $7.25 minimum to the current $9 was an additional $2.99 million annual investment by the university into student wages.
Still, the cost of living in Oxford has already outpaced the average hourly student pay. Rent costs, which make up a large portion but not all of student expenses, are up nearly 10% from last year, according to RentCafe. This means the average price for an apartment is now $2,343 a month.
A student who works the maximum 25 hours every week and earns the average campus wage brings in less than half of the cost of rent each month.
Furthermore, UM tuition and fees have risen 38% over the last decade, fueling a total cost of attendance exceeding $49,000 in 2025, up 5.5% from the year before.
Different wages, same problem
Across university departments, students feel similar effects of pinching pennies. Thomas Tilleros, a senior Southern studies major who earns $12 per hour as an administrative assistant in one of the university’s academic departments, believes it would be impossible to live on the university’s minimum wage.
“There is no way a student can survive off $9 an hour and only 20 hours of work a week,” Tilleros said.
Griffen Hinkle, a senior integrated marketing communications major working for Ole Miss Sports Productions for $9 an hour, echoed this sentiment.
“Expenses are much more than the current income as an Ole Miss student (can support),” Hinkle said. “I think $15 or more is much closer to being reasonable.”
Madison Pope, a junior psychology major, makes $10 per hour working at the university library. She holds a different view, emphasizing that the hourly wage is an issue but is not the entire problem.
“I would say it could cover my basic expenses if I could work more hours; however, I did
have to pick up a second job,” Pope said. “I’ve also talked to a few other student workers who share the same problem with the pay being too low and had to pick up another job.”
Combined with the increasing costs of attending the university, hourly work limits compound with existing financial pressures. Sánchez takes on three jobs in an attempt to reach the maximum in the first place.
Today, she anxiously plans every shift for consistent pay.
“I stress myself out planning and separating my time to squeeze my work hours between my classes,” Sánchez said. “I force myself to go to every shift on time because I would hate to lose my jobs that give me the most consistent hours.”
No fixed system
Since departments set their own pay, student wages and work experiences can be drastically different. Christine Hellums, the business manager for the School of Engineering, said that within her school, there is not a single, centralized structure governing what student employees earn.
“Each unit or department tends to establish its own approach based on a variety of factors, so there can be quite a bit of variation in how pay is determined,” Hellums said. “Within departments, decisions about student wages are typically influenced by considerations such as the nature and complexity of the work, required skill level or prior experience and available funding.”
As a result, Hellums said, the School of Engineering determines pay on a case-by-case basis rather than by a fixed range, and depending on the department, adjustments to student wages can happen periodically.
“Differences you see between departments are often the result of these varying needs and resources, as well as differing operational priorities,” Hellums said.
Wendy Goldberg, a senior lecturer and member of the organizing committee of the United Campus Workers of Mississippi, wants the university to address the tension between what departments want to offer workers and what their budgets can support.
The United Campus Workers, a labor advocacy organization that unites staff, faculty and student laborers across Mississippi campuses, is seeking more student wage transparency.
Unlike faculty and staff members, she explained, students do not have access to a public list or online database showing what each department and role pays its student workers, ultimately making it more difficult for students to advocate for themselves and to locate higher paying campus jobs.
“The university needs to be transparent with the way people are paid,” Goldberg said. “You should know if there are better wages in another department so you can go there. That’s the whole point of competition of wages, that you can apply somewhere else if there’s better pay.”
Goldberg also explained the broader consequences of the university paying students a wage that cannot cover the cost of living in Oxford, pointing to issues of food insecurity and the struggle of affording housing.
“There are real consequences for students who are falling through the cracks, who may even have to drop out because they can’t afford to stay here,” Goldberg said.
According to College Tuition Compare, 72% of UM undergraduates receive some form of federal, state, local, institutional or other source of grant aid. With an average award of $12,887 per academic year, there is a clear gap between financial aid and the overall cost of attendance.
As of April 15, the UM website estimates that the cost of attendance is $31,154 for in-state students and $51,314 for out-of-state students.
For many, on-campus jobs are not a source of extra income. They are a mode to stay housed, fed and enrolled.
What would it take?
All costs considered, many students want a minimum wage well above the current $9 for on-campus jobs. Tilleros suggested $12 for a minimum, with a range up to $17, while Hinkle and Pope say that $15 would be a fair starting point. Goldberg, speaking from the union’s position, suggested even more.
“We used to advocate for $20 an hour, but I think that given the way things are now, I don’t think that’s enough,” Goldberg said. “That is way more than what people are currently making.”
Since the university will continue to evaluate the minimum wage annually, it is possible that wages will increase in a future budget cycle. Sánchez, however, hopes to see change more immediately as costs continue to rise while wages do not.
“This financial situation stresses me,” Sánchez said. “I am already doing beyond the average student part-time. Even if it was possible to increase my hours, I don’t think I would be able to handle everything at the same time.”
While working more hours is an option, Goldberg believes that the issue calls for collective action.
“Individually, you can’t do anything,” Goldberg said. “But if we come together, we can say, ‘This needs to change. This needs to happen.’”
