Paid Employment and University Student Academic Experience

Introduction: Why More Students Are Working

For various reasons, there has been an increase in paid employment among university students. One reason for this shift is a change in the demographics of the university student population. No longer are university students primarily composed of young adults who transition immediately from secondary education into the university setting. Instead, many university students are non-traditional students — older, with families, and with significant workforce experience prior to entering higher education. Other students may enter universities at the traditional age but face financial challenges that require them to work in order to support themselves or pay for their education.

This situation reflects a broader cultural shift in both the willingness to subsidize higher education and the class requirements for accessing it. For example, reductions in financial support for higher education students have taken place in the United Kingdom since the 1980s, leading to the abolition of maintenance grants and their replacement with tuition fees and educational loans (Moreau & Leathwood, 2006). These types of changes are occurring worldwide, reshaping expectations for what it means to be a college student.

One significant consequence of this shift is the growing number of students engaged in the paid workforce. Because of this increase, one would expect to see changes in how the working environment impacts students. Evidence from recent studies strongly suggests that the pattern of full-time student engagement with higher education has changed considerably over the past decade, and especially in the last two to three years (McInnis & Hartley, 2002).

Generally, when one considers how paid employment might affect a student's university experience, two hypothesized impacts emerge. The first is academic: the theory holds that paid employment interferes with students' ability to study and results in an overall decline in academic performance. However, focusing on grades alone ignores the fact that the university experience is not solely academic. It is a holistic experience that involves a significant amount of social activity. Some studies have therefore examined how paid employment affects the overall university experience, asking whether working students are unable to fully participate in campus life.

Work-Study Conflict and Student Perceptions

One area researchers have examined is whether students perceive a conflict between work and study. Most students engaged in paid employment are not full-time workers, which helps explain why the majority do not report feeling a strong conflict between work and study (McInnis & Hartley, 2002). However, while most students do not report such conflict, a significant minority do.

In one study, almost one-third of working students reported considering deferring graduation in order to take a break and earn more money (McInnis & Hartley, 2002). In addition, 15 percent of working students reported considering changing their classes to accommodate a more demanding work schedule (McInnis & Hartley, 2002). This emphasis on earning money did appear to be detrimental to some students' academic engagement; almost 20 percent of working students were worried about failing because of their paid employment (McInnis & Hartley, 2002).

It is important to examine a variety of evidence before drawing conclusions about whether involvement in the paid workforce is harmful to students. In fact, it would be erroneous to conclude that paid employment has either a neutral or a negative effect on academic performance across the board. Missing classes does have a negative effect on grades, and working students may be more likely to miss classes (Applegate & Daly, 2006). However, paid employment can actually have a positive impact on grades if that employment is genuinely part-time — specifically, fewer than 22 hours per week (Applegate & Daly, 2006).

Impact of Paid Employment on Academic Performance

Moreover, it can be difficult to assess the effect of work simply by counting hours worked (Stinebrickner & Stinebrickner, 2003). It may be that more responsible students are both more likely to work during university and more likely to achieve good grades, or it may be that the experience of paid employment itself encourages better academic performance. Either way, there is a positive correlation between grades and true part-time employment. However, students who work full-time — a category that includes many non-traditional students — do appear to face a meaningful burden from the work-study conflict.

Despite these legitimate concerns, students have developed a number of strategies for balancing paid employment with their studies. For example, almost a quarter of students chose their class schedules to fit around their work schedules (McInnis & Hartley, 2002). However, this adaptive behavior was only partially successful: 21 percent of students reported difficulty finding suitable subjects; 19 percent had difficulty finding appropriate class times; and 13 percent acknowledged frequently missing lectures, labs, and tutorials because of conflicts with work (McInnis & Hartley, 2002).

Therefore, it appears that students who lack flexibility in their job schedules are likely to encounter a significant work-study conflict that will negatively affect their ability to participate meaningfully in the classroom environment.

It is impossible to ignore the class implications that accompany the relationship between paid employment and university performance. Employment does not appear to affect cognitive development differently based on a student's social class, but excessive working hours do have a negative impact on some aspects of cognitive development (Pascarella et al., 1998). Furthermore, clear class differences are observable: the lower a student's social class, the greater the financial need, and the more likely the student is to seek paid employment. Yet those students who work while enrolled are less likely to be academically successful than students who can study full-time without the demands of employment.