The Student Senate along with college administration helped approve an increase in student help pay wages that will go into effect on July 1.

The student pay rate for the 2012-2013 fiscal year has increased from $9.00 to $9.10 per hour. This would be the fourth pay increase for students in a five-year period that the District Board has authorized.

There are books to buy, loans, housing and many other expenses a lot of students may not be able to afford. If you have a part-time job, especially with Wisconsin’s 2012 minimum wage at $7.25 per hour, you would still have to work a substantial amount of time as well as school work in order to live.

Because of this, the college’s student help and Work Study Program offers fair pay for qualifying students.

In order to calculate a fair pay raise amount, research was done by the college administration. By comparing student jobs with similar occupations, the administration recommended a student help pay raise of 10 cents per hour, or at the rate of 1.11 percent for the 2012-2013 fiscal year. The help came from WORKNet, Wisconsin’s Workforce and Labor Market Information System. The website is a statewide public database, which came in handy when the wage comparison was needed.