I'm a videographer for my university. I'm in my third year of school here, and I've worked here since before I started my degree. Student employees here are notoriously treated like shit, especially the international students. Honestly I'd be fine with the incapable managers and awful pay and ridiculous expectations if we got some kind of discount on our tuition or ANY kind of student benefit but we don't.
We do employee evaluations every semester where our managers can give us a raise if they want. They used to be able to give us up to $1 every semester, then it was $.50, now it's $.20. This decrease has taken place over the last 6 years, and no one seems to notice because most people quit after about a year. This past semester they changed it again so that raises are based on the evaluation your manager gives you, and no one (not even managers) knows how the raises are calculated from the eval. After this past evaluation, I was told that “oopsies, we forgot to tell you that you reached the maximum pay for your position last semester, so you're not eligible for any more raises”. Awesome! So now I have no motivation to do any better at my job and I feel completely stuck. My rent is going up and my pay is not and now I have to sell my plasma and do Uber Eats to afford to eat and pay for my tiny shitty apartment.
I'm just exhausted. I know a ton of student employees here feel the same. We've tried to push for raises and we're told that “it's not in the budget”, “it's not up to us” and “you already get raises”. I am the highest paid person in my office and I make $11.70, and I will continue to make $11.70 for the next 2 years. This job is great experience for my degree, and It's a good resume boost. I get to use nice equipment and make cool content, but if I could afford a camera and a nice lens I'd quit and find a higher paying job. I guess for now I just need to stick it out and sell my time, ideas, and energy to a university that doesn't care about me. Everyone talks about how college kids are so broke, and how its a universal (or at least national) experience, but man this just sucks.