October 29, 2022
Your College RA Deserves a Union
By Lisa Herforth-Hebbert
Resident Advisers are workers and should demand employment status, union recognition, and fair wages. Universities cannot function without them.
Before I went off to college last fall, my older friends and family wistfully shared stories about their prime years spent in cramped dorms, dimly lit frat houses, and other situations they might not appreciate being retold. My dad—who will quickly self-identify as a terrible student—offered his own form of academic guidance. After talking about my impending 126-square-foot bedroom, he said, “Be friends with your RA.” He defended this with the logic that “if your friend finds alcohol in your room, then you won’t get in trouble.”
I didn’t expect to end up as a Resident Adviser—or RA—the following year, completely misunderstanding his advice.
Being an RA is not a career choice that I would immediately associate with fun. Most of the students that apply for the job are drawn by the promise of free housing. However, as I’d soon come to understand, this sole benefit in no way matches the heavy demands of the position, nor does it function as anything close to a fair wage.
Most people familiar with the student housing situation in the United States—including my father—may think of an RA as something akin to a campus narc: someone who finds fulfillment in being hated by their peers for reporting parties, drug use, and underage drinking. Others acknowledge that RAs also plan events and occasionally post some cheery bulletin board material. But in practice, working as an RA is incredibly demanding, with a pay rate that is often far below other student roles’ hourly compensation as well as a state’s minimum wage.
