At the end of last semester, the Student Services Finance Committee voted to raise wages for student workers working for General Student Services Fund organizations from $9.19 an hour to $10.50 an hour. GSSF organizations are student groups that provide services for students, such as Greater University Tutoring Services and Promoting Awareness Victim Empowerment.

This is after nearly a decade of wages being stuck at $9.19 despite the costs of housing, tuition and living rising almost every year. This is after students voted to support raising the minimum wage in the most recent fall election. More people voted to raise the minimum wage than voted for Mary Burke — clearly this is not a partisan issue.

I applaud SSFC and the Associated Students of Madison for taking this step for about a hundred student workers who work to provide critical services. It’s refreshing to see a body with some power do something good about it — certainly a change of pace from our state government or my own government body at the county level. It’s definitely good to see ASM take action that will benefit students, rather than debate process and internal policy or defund multicultural student organizations like they’re known to do.

While this particular step only brings more equitable wages for some students, it’s a clear statement to other institutions funded by student money to raise wages, whether it’s through segregated fees or tuition. With tuition and fees as high as they are, institutions like Memorial Union and Union South need to start paying attention to the issue of student wages, especially if those organizations bring in other sources of funding (or make a profit — it’s not your imagination, those pitchers are getting more expensive).

If a student works for 15 hours a week for the school year (and working more than that is linked with lower academic achievement), they would actually have to make $21 an hour just to pay off in-state tuition. This doesn’t include the cost of rent or food, both of which are significantly more expensive than even five years ago, when I was a freshman. These statistics are set in the context of further potential cuts to the university and potential tuition hikes to cover those cuts.

It’s a simple matter of whether or not campus wants to be accessible to all students. Without ways to pay for school, the university will fail in its mission to provide an education to more and more students, especially working class students and students of color — in a state with some of the highest racial disparities in the nation. So, for possibly the first time in my life, I want to say to other departments in the universities — follow ASM’s lead and raise student wages.

Leland Pan ([email protected]) is Dane County Board Supervisor for District 5.