Study Offers New Data on College Student Employment

A recent study of college student employment conducted by the American Council on Education (ACE) Center for Policy Analysis concludes that “most students work and work a lot.” Using data from the U.S. Department of Education’s National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, ACE shows that 78 percent of undergraduates work while they are enrolled in college—a statistic that has remained relatively unchanged since the study’s commencement in the mid 1990s.

ACE also suggests that employed students fall into two broad groups: those who consider themselves as workers before students, or “employees who study,” and those who consider themselves scholars before employees, or “students who work.” For students who work, hours worked correlate to academic success, while for employees who study, there is little connection between hours worked and academic achievement.

FINDINGS

Patterns of Student Employment

• Regardless of age, gender, race/ethnicity, dependency or marital status, enrollment status, type of institution attended, or even income or living expenses, 70 to 80 percent of students work while they are enrolled in college.
• On average, employed students spend almost thirty hours per week working while enrolled.
• A surprisingly large share of affluent students work: 33 percent of dependent students with parental incomes $90,000 or more work twenty-one or more hours a week, compared to 41 percent of dependent students with parental incomes of less than $30,000.
  

“Employees Who Study” and “Students Who Work”

• “Employees who study” make up one-third of working students; students in this group work an average of thirty-eight hours a week and tend to be older and attend college part time. 
• Two-thirds of students who hold jobs in college consider themselves “students who work”; students in this group work primarily to pay for tuition, earn spending money, and gain job experience.
• Fifty-four percent of “employees who study” report that their major and their jobs are related, compared to only 31 percent of “students who work.”
  

Work and Academic Achievement

• Working fifteen or fewer hours per week generally has a positive effect on persistence and degree completion.
• Working more than fifteen to twenty hours a week has a negative impact on degree completion.
• Forty-eight percent of students who work say that work limits their class schedule, 49 percent say it limits the number of classes they take, and 31 percent say it limits their access to campus facilities.

ACE’s briefing paper on college student employment, Working Their Way Through College: Student Employment and Its Impact on the College Experience (PDF), is available online.

DID YOU KNOW?

• About one-quarter of full-time students work full time.
• Only one in five students who work find their jobs to be helpful with career preparation.
• Ninety-one percent of employed students work off-campus.