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Students who work 20-plus hours a week are more likely to have negative academic outcomes, compared to their peers who don’t work or work less. New data shows where students need additional support from higher education.
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As the cost of higher education has grown, so has the number of students who earn their own income to pay for tuition, fees and related expenses. A fall 2023 survey from Trellis Strategies found 68 percent of students were working for pay while enrolled, and 41 percent of working students worked 40 or more hours in a typical week.
Prior research finds there are benefits for students who work while enrolled in college, but that educational outcomes (including grades, credits earned, persistence, stopping out and dropping out) suffer among students who work over 20 hours a week and are even more severe for students working 28-plus hours a week. Historic data shows students from low-income backgrounds are more likely to rely on their own income to support themselves through college, demonstrating equity gaps in who can focus exclusively on school while enrolled.
New research from two Emmanuel College faculty members explores why students work while enrolled in college, the barriers they face juggling work and education, and ways higher education institutions and practitioners can better support working students.
The background: Katrin Križ, a professor of sociology, and Janese Free, an associate professor of criminology and criminal justice, are two researchers who typically focus on equity and social justice issues for young people outside of the classroom. But recently, the instructors noticed the number of students in their classes who are working has increased, and how they engage in the classroom has changed as well.
“Kati [Križ] speaks of a student that she had in her class who was falling asleep, and she eventually found out that the student was working a night shift as a security officer,” Free explains. “I had an experience during the pandemic where a student met with me [online] inside the back room of a Starbucks for office hours.”
The professors decided to investigate how working while enrolled put students at risk of negative outcomes and what they need from their institutions to be successful.
The study: The research captures the experiences of college students working 20-plus hours a week and enrolled full-time (at least 12 credits per semester) at a two- or four-year college or university in the U.S.
Križ and Free, supported by a team of student research assistants, conducted interviews in 2020 and in 2023 with 94 students from different socioeconomic backgrounds.
“We really did this through a lens of equity, inclusion, social justice, because it stood out to us that many of the students who are working 20 hours or more a week are from marginalized populations as well, and so they are already facing other obstacles and hardships in life, and then this [work] is on top of that,” Free says.
The results: The interviews revealed that students work for a variety of reasons, some earning discretionary funds or saving for later in life and others needing immediate support for themselves and their families.
Many students have been working since high school, sometimes to pay for college, showing how the cost of higher education affects students before they even enroll.
“I wasn’t surprised by the hardships—I knew they existed, I see them in my classrooms—but the depth of them and the ripple effect of these hardships in their lives [was surprising],” Free says.
Students spoke about having panic attacks, being caught in deep depression and having migraines from stress. “It was just stunning to me as to how strongly these hardships end up translating into life consequences for them; even if they’re succeeding in working and studying, they take a huge toll to do this, and a disproportionate toll than other students take,” Free says.
Križ notes that their research focuses on students who are currently enrolled in college, which highlights the grit and coping mechanisms it requires to continue juggling competing priorities.
Students Say
A May 2024 Student Voice survey by Inside Higher Ed and Generation Lab found the No. 1 stressor for college students was balancing academics with other responsibilities, followed by paying for college. Among respondents who work over 30 hours a week, 59 percent said balancing academics with personal, family or financial responsibilities was a top stressor.
“And yet [these coping mechanisms] are not enough, because the time deficit is just so stark,” Križ says. “There are only so many hours in a day and there are only so many hours in a week.”
In interviews, students spoke of the benefits of working as well, including their personal growth, the social supports from their workplace and the knowledge and skills boost they had.
Creating a compassionate college: Through interviews, Križ and Free identified five key themes of support working students want from their professors and others working in higher education.
- Access to information. Often, institutions are unaware of the financial circumstances of students and the struggles they may be facing. Trellis’s survey found 31 percent of students facing financial difficulties believed their institution was unaware of their monetary struggles.
Colleges can gather information about students’ work situations and the socioeconomics of their students to share with the wider campus, helping paint an accurate picture of who is enrolled and what difficulties they may be facing.
Career centers can also play a role in supporting students who are working, sharing during orientation the benefits or pitfalls of working while studying or highlighting jobs with student-friendly employers in the area.
Within classes, faculty could also collect data among their students about how personal circumstances may impact their learning. Free distributes note cards to students on the first day of class and asks them to share circumstances that may hinder their learning, such as if they commute, the number of hours they work and what shifts they take, so she can better support them.
- Empathy. Interviewed students said they wanted a mental attitude shift toward working students, having more understanding and empathy for their circumstances.
Often, working students are viewed from a deficit mindset as the students who are not able to manage, but rather, they’re the ones with the most resiliency, Free says. “The deck is so stacked against them, it can appear as if they’re not making it.”
“I think we can learn a lesson from COVID … because within a week, we pivoted towards a completely different system, and we changed our attitude,” Križ says. “We became much more compassionate, much more lenient, much more flexible.”
- Flexibility. Trellis’s survey found 25 percent of working students had missed at least one day of class due to conflicts with their job in the past year. Providing students with flexible attendance policies or deadlines can accommodate students who must also prioritize work.
Office hours or student support hours is another area working students need flexibility, because their shifts can put them in misalignment with the availability of services like counseling.
- Predictability. The two professors were impressed by how savvy students were with their schedules, working ahead on assignments and maintaining digital calendars to be able to meet all deadlines. But this was only possible when professors were proactive with sharing deadlines or assignments, emphasizing the role of predictability in the classroom.
“Honestly, as a faculty member, I never thought of that,” Križ says.
In addition to providing a road map of course content at the start of the term, professors can build a helpful structure for students by making deadlines uniform, such as midnight on Tuesdays, so there is less confusion and student workers can build their schedules around it. Similarly, pop quizzes or last-minute assignments can disadvantage students who have a time deficit, so avoiding that when possible is also important.
One change Free made in her class was estimating how long each assignment should take students to help them budget their time. If students are assigned to respond to four discussion questions, Free will outline about how long students should spend writing or she’ll note the length of the video they’re going to watch as homework.
This adjustment has helped more than just working students, as it sets expectations for everyone to designate the appropriate amount of time to complete their homework.
- Student participation. Young people are often underrepresented in institutional decision-making structures, such as the Board of Trustees or administration, Križ says, which leaves them out of the process. Colleges and universities should consider ways to listen to and elevate the voices of working students to better support them.
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