Regardless of age, race or sex, Ball State University students can find work on campus despite rising unemployment rates for teenagers nationally.
Ball State has a 10.2 percent minority rate for undergraduate students, and the Career Center, on average, hires 8 to 9 percent minority students to work on campus.
At any given time approximately 2,500 students have on-campus jobs and the Career Center is doing what it can to make sure all students are being given an equal opportunity to work on campus, Jeannine Harrold, director of the Career Center said.
"We remain pretty parallel with the school's numbers," Harrold said. "We've never had anybody say 'I couldn't get a good job because I was a minority or a woman' or something like that."
According to the Department of Labor, the national unemployment rate was 4.6 percent in September, but the average of unemployed black adults was double the national average at 9.2 percent.
The Department of Labor also reported the rate of unemployed black teenagers, age 16 to 19, has reached a record high of 32.2 percent, more than double the national average for all teenagers at 16.4 percent.
There tend to be fewer international students who work for the school Harrold said, because they have difficulty finding work.
Not only do they need to abide by the regulations all students have to follow about the number of hours they work per week, but they also usually need special permission to work because of their student visas.
Despite the issues, international students can still get a job on campus.
"If you have the will to get a job, you can," Gozel Berkeliyeva, Dining Services employee and international student, said. "Sometimes people complain about minimum wages, though."
Even though the rate of minority enrollment and student employment at Ball State are almost parallel, there is a gap between male and female employment.
"Gender is disproportionate here," Harrold said. "It's been true for years."
On average, around 60 percent of the student workforce on campus consists of women, even though only 51.9 percent of all undergraduates are women.
"My guess is because a lot of the jobs are office based," Harrold said. "Men typically work for groups like the grounds crew."
The Career Center provides students with the chance to work almost any job they want, regardless of sex, Harrold said.
"About the only jobs that are intended to be gender specific are in locker rooms," she said.
Age, gender and race are not the only factors behind national minority unemployment.
One of the biggest concerns about jobs for teenagers who are actively seeking employment is wage rates according to the Employment Policies Institute, a non-profit organization dedicated to researching employment issues. If wage rates were raised, businesses wouldn't be able to hire as many employees, causing unemployment rates to increase, according to the institute.
"We already pay $5.50, which is slightly more than the federal minimum wage of $5.15, so if it was to raise, it wouldn't really affect us," Harrold said. "We don't really know how a raised minimum wage would affect the campus, but there isn't any cause for concern."
The normal wage for an on-campus job is $5.50, but the starting hourly wage for dining services was raised to $6.25. Some other specialized jobs have higher wages as well.
There is no need to worry about high turn-over rates on campus, when students accept a job but leave shortly after, Harrold said. The university depends on students to work on campus so it guarantees employment.
"We have students come as freshmen and stay until they graduate," she said.
Some students work so they can have spending money, but others work out of necessity, such as Berkeliyeva.
"I plan to work every year," she said. "I have to pay for college and support myself. It's tough."
Approximately 4,500 students work on campus throughout the year, Harrold said. Even though the national average for unemployment among black teenagers and young adults has increased, student employment has stayed consistent.
"We work real hard to make sure that all students know how to get jobs on campus," she said. "If there were concerns, we would be all over it."
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