By Sapphire Perez, Staff Reporter
Toro student workers were left in a financial lurch last month after CSUDH announced that the university had “fully exhausted” its Federal Work-Study funds (FWS) for the remainder of the 2024-2025 academic year. In a Feb. 25 email, CSUDH administrators said the shortfall was due to “an exponential increase” in participation this year, and more students were hired at an “increasingly higher rate.”
According to Danny Duong, the university’s financial aid and scholarships director, some employers mistakenly overpaid students beyond their awarded amounts and paid other students who were not officially enrolled in the program. He stated that staff training would be implemented to prevent similar mistakes in the future. Duong directed student-workers to prepare for their last day of work on Mar. 7.
“We apologize for any disruption or negative impact this may have on your department,” wrote Duong. “We also want to take this opportunity to thank you for your understanding as we work to strengthen our partnership to avoid a situation such as this in the future.”
The announcement caught student workers off guard, since it was only sent to their employers—it was up to them to inform employees that they would be laid off in the coming days. Michelle Meza, a junior cellular and molecular biology student, told The Bulletin their work-study job allowed them to support their siblings and help their mother pay the household bills.
“You get that call and you feel like your heart just drops down to your stomach,” said Meza. “In the first like five seconds of registering that information you’re thinking … like, I’m going to have to get out there and find another job, or how am I going to spread out the funds I already have to still provide?”
Students complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) to help determine their eligibility for the FWS program. Those who qualify receive funding in exchange for working a set number of hours on campus. Once students have reached their allotted hours and funds are exhausted, their employment ends for the academic year.
Universities receive an estimated amount of FWS funding each year based on student participation and award usage from previous years.
In a Mar. 6 email to The Bulletin, a CSUDH spokesperson confirmed that student enrollment in the FWS program increased by 36 percent compared to the 2023-2024 school year.
Unlike Meza, some students found out about the funding shortfall through social media instead of their employers. On Feb. 28, the Labor and Social Justice Club also highlighted the shortfall on its Instagram account.
A few days later, on Mar. 3, the university’s official mascot also weighed in, sharing a link to a recent Inside Higher Ed article about the issue. The text on Teddy the Toro’s Instagram story read, “Why I haven’t been around.”
Associated Students, Inc. (ASI) oversees Teddy the Toro’s activities and appearances. The Bulletin reached out to ASI for comment on the mascot’s social media post and whether the individual portraying Teddy the Toro was directly affected by the shortfall, but did not receive a response by press time.
“I had some people reach out to me because they hadn’t been told by their employer,” said Julianna Ortega, a student assistant working in the Labor Studied Department.
Ortega learned about the funding shortfall when her employer forwarded her Duong’s email. At the time, she had been working for months on outreach projects and preparing for the department’s annual Labor & Social Justice Fair.
The department scrambled to find the funds to keep her employed, Ortega said, since she was their only student assistant.
“I really like what I do, and in Federal Work-Study, we don’t make a lot—but I’m meeting a lot of really great people and doing, I think, a lot of great work,” Ortega told The Bulletin. “This whole debacle is not something that I needed in the middle of our semester.”
The funding shortfall did not come as a surprise to Neyaira Burton-Stokes, a student assistant in the Communications Department. With CSUDH facing a $12 million budget reduction next year, she was already concerned about how it might affect students. Burton-Stokes told The Bulletin she hadn’t expected the university’s financial struggles to impact financial aid.
“Somebody plans who gets work-study or not, so they should have the numbers and they wouldn’t fully just give it out to anybody,” Burton-Stokes said. “But I guess I was wrong.”
During an ASI community meeting on Mar 3., CSUDH administrators announced that the university was working to support affected student workers. The following day, a campus-wide email from administrators assured campus that alternative funding had been secured, allowing student workers to continue their employment as expected.
The CSUDH spokesperson told The Bulletin that alternative funding would come from various sources, including departments, divisions, colleges, and university reserves. Additionally, qualifying students will receive support through the Middle-Class Scholarship and the State University Grant.
“I don’t really have faith in this administration or in this university,” Ortega said. “I think they’re doing this because they have messed up really bad.”
