OPINION: Earlier this year, the University of Maine Student Government (UMSG) raised the hourly wage for executives from $17 an hour to $21, while the wages of other paid positions increased to $18.50. This wage change has made executives some of the highest-paid undergraduate workers on campus, and for some workers, the money they are making is unfathomable. The raise occurred despite protests from some student senators and a few amendments that attempted to reduce the wage increase to $19 and then $19.65 per hour. Maine’s current minimum wage is $15.10 an hour.
This information is not new. While many students may at first decry seeing the student government raise their wages so high, there is a good-faith way to look at it. When proposing the wage increase, the idea that the cost of living has eclipsed the old wages was brought up. When looking at debt taken on, costs for housing, food, gas, books and other everyday expenses add up for a student; $15.10 or even $17 an hour is not going to cut it. Factoring in that the executives work only 15 hours a week, the raise makes economic sense for them.
That good-faith argument, however, belies the true gripe one could take with UMSG. In its student handbook, it states that the job of the executive team is to “represent the student body to the university administration and surrounding community.” If the executives know that student wages need to rise, then why aren’t they advocating more for us? Some may immediately argue that UMSG cannot control university wage policy, which is true, but representation does not require control, it requires initiative. If the governing body can marshal debate, draft legislation and allocate funds to address its own compensation, it can also call attention to wage stagnation for the broader student workforce. It can introduce resolutions urging review of the pay scale. It can make student wages a recurring agenda item in meetings with administrators. It can, at minimum, signal that the issue extends beyond its own offices.
The official university pay scale for 2025, the most recent one available on the site, shows that the pay system places students at or around minimum wage and moves them up pay levels per year or if supervisors determine they have taken on an increased workload. Compared with the $17 an hour made by executives in 2025, a student would have to reach level 10 out of a possible 12 to surpass those wages. I personally know a student who started working at the Rec three years ago at $15.15 an hour and now makes $16.35. Three years plus UMaine raising the minimum wage during that time, and the student still makes less than what UMSG executives were unwilling to be paid anymore. Not only that, but they were not willing to go down to $19 or $19.65. Students working for companies such as Sodexo, which works closely with the school, are given a flat $16 wage and remain at that rate unless they receive a one-time 50-cent raise. These low wages force students to work longer than 15 hours a week and begin to put strain on their education.
I do not mean to imply that the student government made a mistake by giving itself a raise, there are genuine reasons for it, but unlike them, students do not control their own wages. In fact, the people we turn to are the student government. Pass a resolution. Organize a petition of student workers. Virtue signal. Show me you care. You cared about your own wages, care about the rest of the student population. You got your $21 an hour: now earn it.
