Student employment is a critical and often-overlooked aspect of college life in the United States. Understanding the impact of student work—based on the number of hours worked—is important for students, parents, academic advisors, counselors, faculty, and administrative staff. Students, for instance, want to know how work affects their GPA and their overall satisfaction with college. Advisors and administrators want to know how student employment affects retention and graduation rates.
Student employment is not a recent phenomenon, but it has risen sharply in recent years. Data from 1980-84 found that one in 12 full-time college students were employed more than full time while attending college, and 25 percent worked less than 20 hours per week. By 2003-04, about 80 percent of American undergraduates worked while attending college. Juggling work and academics is now commonplace among America’s diverse undergraduate population, and work is one of the most significant aspects of college life. As more students come to rely on their wages, student employment is almost certainly here to stay.
This poses an important question: How does student employment affect the overall college experience?
A part-time job can be a great help for college students. It can cover expenses for basic essentials, relieve parents’ financial burdens, improve students’ employability after graduation, help develop practical (transferable) skills, offer networking opportunities, and enhance students’ social lives. But employment can also weigh heavily on students, reducing the time they have for study and for participation in school activities and personal events.
To examine the effect of employment on the student experience, we grouped students based on the number of hours they worked. What we found is that work has positive effect on both satisfaction and GPA, when students worked fewer than 10 hours.
Our study showed that a part-time job may not always be detrimental to students’ satisfaction. However, when students work more than 11 hours a week, their satisfaction and GPA were found to decline slightly based on the additional number of hours worked.