Some student workers now are worried about paying rent and other bills after their North Texas universities decided not to pay them for wages lost during last week’s winter storms.
Kelsey Horton, a sophomore at the University of North Texas, relies on her paycheck as a front desk clerk at the school’s Honors Hall.
Scheduled for work, Horton was driving to campus on Feb. 14 when she hit a patch of ice and got into a wreck, totaling her car in the process. It now sits outside of her parent’s home.
After the university announced it would close its campus for the week, her supervisors told her not to worry about showing up. Then she found out on Friday that she would not be compensated for the lost week.
“How else am I going to get another car if I don’t get money? How else am I going to pay my utility bills?” said Horton, adding that she is afraid her water bill will spike after letting her faucets drip to prevent her apartment’s pipes from bursting.
Horton already works a second job delivering food for services like Doordash and Favor that she picked up after her roommate moved out a couple of months ago.
Because UNT had previously compensated student workers after it shut down because of the coronavirus pandemic, Horton expected the same response.
“It stressed me out way more than I should be feeling right now because the world’s already in a stressful place, and then this just adds to it,” she said.
Similarly, the University of Texas at Dallas, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Texas at Tyler, Texas A&M University, Texas Tech University and Dallas College will not be compensating students who were unable to work during the campus closure.
Students created a petition urging the university system — which includes the flagship campus in Denton, UNT-Dallas, UNT at Frisco and the University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth — to compensate hourly workers. The petition has collected nearly 1,000 signatures as of Wednesday afternoon.
Brett Davis, a senior at UNT in Denton, organized the petition after seeing that a fellow student had posted a screenshot of the email that the university had sent out that noted students would only be compensated for actual time worked not what was scheduled.
“I just don’t think it’s right. I don’t think it’s right for hourly employees, specifically to be denied a week’s worth of wages,” Davis, 21, said.
UNT officials said they are trying to find ways to help students, such as allowing them to make up missed hours where possible.
Last week’s storm resulted in data loss issues and the university is reviewing information on which students did and did not get paid, according to Kris Muller, a UNT spokesperson.
“UNT is committed to finding a way to compensate the students given the hardship that occurred as a result of the storm. There are several possibilities for assisting the students, but staff need to gather the information first,” Muller said in an email Wednesday.
Full-time employees at state universities — such as those at UNT, UT or Texas A&M system schools — can use paid emergency leave to make up the lost hours work. But that’s not generally available to student workers.
Universities also have to follow laws that could prohibit them from paying students for hours not worked, said Lucas Roebuck, a UT-Tyler spokesman.
Roebuck noted that through the pandemic, schools have become more adept at helping students. UT-Tyler, for example, is encouraging students struggling because of the storm to reach out to the financial aid office or apply for help from the campus’ student emergency fund.
In Denton, UNT sophomore Savannah Phifer, who works on campus at its printing and distribution services, is losing about half of her rent in pay. Even if the university allows for student workers to work extra hours, she doesn’t know how viable that is.
“On top of doing classes, having time to do my homework, my assignments and turn them in, it’d be a very heavy workload,” Phifer, 20, said.
UNT’s neighboring school in Denton, Texas Woman’s University, said student workers will be paid even though they were unable to work last week. Southern Methodist University, Tarrant County College and Texas Wesleyan University are also among those that will be compensating them.
UNT officials have asked supervisors to offer student workers opportunities to make up lost hours in the coming weeks, according to an email UNT President Neal Smatresk sent Monday to students. Smatresk talked with petition organizers on Wednesday.
Students are generally limited to the number of hours they can work based on factors such as financial aid, employment status or if they are international students.
And after also losing an entire week of classes, Davis is worried that student workers will have to juggle doubled assignments and extra work hours.
“Not only do student workers have to catch up on a week’s worth of academic work, they have to catch up on lost wages,” Davis said. “That doesn’t spell Academic Success to me.”
Michael Luecke, UNT’s Student Government Association president, submitted a resolution calling for the compensation of lost wages.
Luecke said the freezing weather also generated unforeseen expenses for everyone and that this money is crucial for students who are supporting themselves.
“None of us knew that there was going to be a winter storm that would affect us and take away a week’s worth of our pay,” Luecke, 21, said. “We didn’t account for just having a week’s worth of our pay just disappear into thin air.”
The DMN Education Lab deepens the coverage and conversation about urgent education issues critical to the future of North Texas.
The DMN Education Lab is a community-funded journalism initiative, with support from The Beck Group, Bobby and Lottye Lyle, The Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, The Meadows Foundation, Solutions Journalism Network, Southern Methodist University and Todd A. Williams Family Foundation. The Dallas Morning News retains full editorial control of the Education Lab’s journalism.
