College Makes Jobs To Give Men Work In Job-Scarce Jersey Town

Princeton, New Jersey, is the sort of town usually called "jerkwater"; it is very small and very quiet. Consequently, there isn't much need for people to do things.

This situation might sound ideal to those who wish a return to the America of 1900, but it worries Minot C. Morgan, Princeton '35. Morgan is Director of the Bureau of Student Aid and Employment, and in a college where 40 percent of the students are receiving some form of financial aid, he has a big job.

Princeton does not have the large scholarship endowment that Harvard has, and therefore its grants and loans are restricted. Twenty-five percent of all Princeton students, however, do receive scholarship money.

Tough Finding Jobs

But the main part of financial help for Princeton men is in some kind of employment. It is here that the small-town situation is particularly rankling--Morgan's office has difficulty in placing students with local firms simply because there are no local firms.

This year has been a good one so far as local jobs are concerned. Industrial expansion in near-by Trenton has drained the Princeton labor market, and as a result, about ten percent of working students are employed in the town. In most years only five percent have gotten soda-fountain, Western Union, and the other types of jobs available in Princeton.

Quite obviously, it is up to the college to provide jobs for its students. Mr. Morgan's office does this with a great deal of ingenuity and without too much duplication of effort.

The biggest chunk of employment in the college is provided by the dining hall, called the Commons. Each year over 250 students--mostly freshmen and sophomores--earn between $300 and $440 each by acting as waiters or servers in the Commons where underclassmen eat. (Juniors and seniors take meals at their clubs).

Commons' Tables

Men who eat at the Commons sit down in a group at long tables, eat from plastic plates, and take their food and drink from large platters and pitchers which are brought to the tables by the waiters. Servings are definitely limited and the meals are rather rushed--the group usually leaves in a body.

Despite the haste engendered by the system, Princeton officials defend it as part of the college's tradition of gracious living. "We could save some money by going cafeteria," Morgan says, "but it wouldn't be so nice and of course we'd lose a lot of job opportunities."

Another 250 men are employed by the college's agency system. This system is composed of about 25 small bourgeois businesses run by student managers which cover just about every need a Princeton man might have. Separate agencies sell pennants and pins, picture frames, beer mugs, flowers and cushions at football games. Other agencies operate post-game dances, type papers, do illustrations for University publications, and deliver newspapers. One called Tiger Tot Tenders is self-explanatory.

The two biggest agencies are the one which runs the Campus Center snack bar--which has served over 1000 people in a day and the tailor shop which did a $90,000 business last year. Men start off in an agency of their own choosing in freshman year, do "coolie jobs at hourly wages," then work themselves up to foremen, junior managers, and managers. The latter receive a flat sum of $75 a month in large agencies, $50 in the small ones. Surplus money made from the more profitable agencies goes into the scholarship fund. Ideas for new agencies are suggested by students.

How to Make Jobs

A unique Princeton feature is the In-Term Work-Study program in which 50 selected honor students are paid $400 a year to assist faculty members in research projects. This system not only creates jobs but gives the student educational background and takes some of the dirty work from faculty members' shoulders.

Morgan's office is working hard to put over another great job project -- student waiters in the 17 Prospect Street upperclass eating clubs. At present the clubs employ professional help from the town and are reluctant to give up this bit of luxury, but Morgan says, "It's something that is inevitable, only the date is not certain."

In addition to the jobs included in the agency system the Bureau acts as a center for odd-job information that will net students over $30,000 this year. Outside the Bureau's jurisdiction is the Press Club, where students who work for wire service and metropolitan dailies enjoy as much as $1,000 in a year.

All in all, 800 of the college's 2900 men have steady jobs, and another 300 do regular work for the Bureau. Princeton men may be playboys, but they made it the hard way