Budget cuts are changing the RA role, students paying the price

Aika Minja ’27

minjaasa92@lakeforest.edu

Staff Writer

Being a resident assistant(RA) is one of the most sought-after student positions on campus. The role offers the opportunity to build community, support incoming students, and help make residence halls feel like home. It also comes with the option to reside in a single room, a particularly appealing benefit for college students. However, the compensation and responsibilities attached to the position raise an important question: how much can students reasonably be expected to take on when the resources supporting their work are shrinking?

For some students, becoming an RA is inspired by the person who welcomed them to campus during their first year. For others, it’s about the added layer of service they would like to give to their community which ,unlike other avenues of service like student organizations, empowerment groups and student government , comes with compensation and other perks. This year, changes to the Office of Residence Life’s budget have brought additional responsibilities, new expectations, and questions about RA compensation. These changes eventually led RAs to meet with administrators to seek greater clarity about their roles and advocate for themselves.

When I arrived at the College in August 2023 as a first-year student, RAs carried flip phones, organized events with plenty of food, and were familiar faces throughout the residence halls. Now, in my senior year, RAs have smartphones, binders of information, and a new system requiring them to log interactions with each resident through StarRez, the college’s residential management software. Residence Life has also experienced frequent staff turnover, with three of the four Resident Directors (RDs) who were previously in place leaving and new staff members taking over.

Some of these changes may improve communication and accountability. However, they also reflect a shift in what the position requires. RAs now have a smaller event budget, reportedly $75 per semester, and can no longer use those funds for outside catering. Instead, they are expected to complete food-handling training and prepare food for residents themselves. Although the training was originally planned for the August training period, it was moved into the academic semester, adding another responsibility to an already demanding role. Preparing food also requires additional planning to accommodate residents’ dietary restrictions and nutritional needs.

The college has also introduced Forester Guides (FGs), an unpaid position intended to help incoming students adjust to college life. The position includes a single room priced at the cost of a standard double room in the freshman residence halls, as well as biweekly meetings with residence directors (RDs), participation in Residence Life staff meetings, and logging interactions with first-year students through StarRez. While these guides provide another layer of support for incoming students, the position also raises questions about how much work can be added to student leadership roles without direct compensation.

For RAs, the changes extended beyond the academic year. During training, students reported schedules running from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., followed by mandatory team-building activities from 7 to 9 p.m., Monday through Friday. Outside those hours, they were expected to complete tasks such as decorating doors, planning social events, and finishing leadership training assignments. Some RAs described feeling overwhelmed by the workload, with some reporting panic attacks, breakdowns and other difficulties during the training period. Students also raised concerns about inconsistent schedules across RD teams, additional weekend obligations and working more days than they understood they had agreed to when signing their contracts.

The concerns prompted RAs to meet with Residence Life administrators, including RDs Tyler Bernat, Shelby Birnnbaum, Maurice Haney and Enoch Agyei, former Associate Director Katie Oomkes and Head of Residence Life Dr. Mfon B. Nwabuoku. During the meeting, students presented a petition calling for clearer expectations and increased compensation, arguing that their hours and responsibilities had expanded beyond what they had anticipated.

Following the meeting, RAs secured additional pay, although this has supposedly created a further reduction in their already limited spending budget to $50 a semester. Students also received greater clarity about training schedules, and pay was no longer to be withheld from those who missed work because of illness. The outcome demonstrated that student advocacy can make a difference, even when the underlying budget constraints remain.

Some returning RAs acknowledged that, while the changes were frustrating, they understood that reduced funding had contributed to the situation. Their responses reflect a broader challenge facing student employment: students can recognize financial constraints while still asking for fair compensation, reasonable workloads, and transparent expectations.

As someone who has worked in the college archives for two years, I have also watched student employment hours shrink. In 2024, I worked 14 hours per week. In 2025, that decreased to 12 hours, and this year I work 10. My experience is only one example, but it reflects the changes students can feel when budgets are reduced. Across campus, cuts can mean fewer work hours, fewer resources for programming, and changes to the services students rely on.

The RA situation is therefore about more than residence halls or the cost of catering; it raises a larger question about what happens when institutions ask students to do more with less. Student leaders are expected to build community, support their peers, and contribute to campus life, but they are students first, with classes, families, and lives of their own.

As the College continues to navigate financial changes, the experiences of RAs and other student workers serve as a reminder that budget decisions are not just numbers on a spreadsheet. They shape the everyday experiences of the students who make this campus a community.