I agree that this is an important thread and it brings up an important question that families need to ask in the process of choosing or budgeting for a college. I’d note that i don’t think this is common. My son had a hard time finding a position at the small LAC where he started, but it was not impossible. It was just that he ended up with a lower paying job with inconvenient hours. And in his case I do think it was partly attributable to lack of effort, as my son definitely was prone to procrastination at the time.
But my daughter experienced no problems at all at Barnard, which is a peer college to MHC and fellow seven sister. Obviously its urban location and association with Columbia creates a very different setting – but there were plenty of administrative jobs for various departments and offices-- and MHC’s endowment is 3x as high as Barnard - surely they can find a way to disburse their work study dollars to create more jobs. I don’t think all of those work study jobs are critical for campus function – that is, there probably were other people who could have operated the office copy machine if my daughter couldn’t work on a given day — but I do think there is a perhaps an expectation that departments will be allocated money to hire students to perform menial tasks.
Both my kids did have problems meeting the full amount of their allotments, especially the first year, but that was mostly due to to scheduling issues. My d’s biggest mistake in hindsight was opting for an admin job where work was only available during weekday business hours. the same time frame that she often had classes. She was ok because she had other, non work-study paying work she could do evenings and weekends … but I do think that scheduling can always be an issue - and one more thing for parents and new students to be aware of.
Anyway, I’m just reading this thread and have no knowledge whatsoever of what is happening at MHC… I just think that at most colleges there will be jobs- the more typical problem is finding a way to schedule the hours. If if a college has the WS money available and they are aware that students are having difficulty finding positions, it seems to me they could find a way to put more students to work.