The University of Colorado Colorado Springs (UCCS) prides itself on its robust student and staff workforce. Student employees and staff keep vital resources within the university running, such as dining and hospitality, student support services, IT, library, and much more. Despite being one of the main workforces on campus, 95.3% of student employees at UCCS make under $15/hour, with 275 student employees (7.8% of total student employees) earning the Colorado state minimum wage of $12.32/hr. There are also 70 UCCS staff who make less than $15/hr.

Living wage research for Colorado Springs/El Paso County suggests that workers need to make at least $16.77/hr to earn a living wage and that’s just for single adults with no dependents. This living wage estimate increases for individuals with dependents, a fact that must be considered with the large number of non-traditional students who attend UCCS. That leaves many workers to make up the $4.45 every hour worked, at half time (50 hours biweekly).

This is also an equity issue across the CU campuses. CU Boulder, CU Denver and CU Anschutz have all recently raised their minimum wage to $15. Why can’t UCCS? With Covid-19 impacting universities across the world, a living wage is fundamental to the budget so that UCCS can help its students and staff succeed. Even in the most conservative of estimates, it would only cost UCCS about $4.5 million annually to raise the current workforce wage to $15 an hour. There are many areas in the UCCS budget that could help pay for this vital expense. For example, top UCCS administrators make hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. Those administrators, as well as even higher-paid administrators at the system level, can take pay cuts to ensure that all of UCCS’s workers make a living wage.

Given that student workers and staff are on the frontline serving meals in the dining halls, catering to UCCS’ parties, welcoming new students to campus, tutoring, counseling, and overall providing the labor to maintain campus, the pay leaves them to look for other forms of income to make ends meet. If UCCS seeks to represent all students and staff from diverse incomes and backgrounds, the minimum wage for campus must be set higher to meet their needs as workers, students, and people with needs like anyone else. If UCCS prides itself on engineering a future of Colorado Springs’ workers, why not set a precedent by showing that student workers and staff deserve to live and follow their dreams without anxiety or fear of financial hardships?

Sign our petition to demand that UCCS immediately raise the campus minimum wage to $15/hr.

This petition has also been endorsed by the UCCS Student Government Association, UCCS American Association of University Professors, Chinook Center, UCCS College Democrats, UCCS College Republicans, Colorado Springs Democratic Socialists of America, and Colorado Springs Area Labor Council.