College Students and Work: Impact on Academic Performance

College Students and their Professional Work's Effect on their Academic Grades

In today's economy many college students are required to work in order to pay tuition, buy books and pay for their living expenses. However; trying to juggle a job and academics can be daunting for some students. If a student does not have strong time management skills and the ability to restrict how many hours per week they work, their grades may suffer as a result. This can have wide ranging consequences including, loss of financial aid, being put on academic probation, or stress related illness resulting from a student's struggle to balance the demands of work and school. While working can help students to gather work experience for their lives after college, and can provide much needed financial stability, college can also have a negative effect on grades if a student overdoes things.

Literature Review

Applegate and Daly (2002) suggest that it is not whether a student works that has an impact on their grades, it is the amount of hours they work, and the amount of time they invest in study outside the classroom the impacts their grade point average. They hypothesized that students who worked may show slight increases in grades due to better organizational skills however, students that worked more than part time were likely to show lower grades than students that worked part time jobs. A study of 460 University of Canberra students revealed that work in and of itself was not damaging to a student's grades. In fact, certain types of work improved student's grades slightly because they helped students improve their organizational skills. Studying more frequently and receiving private tutoring had a positive impact on grades and work only affected a student's grades negatively if the student worked more than 22 hours per week.

This article indicates that a certain amount of work in the form of internships or part time work may benefit students and help them to develop stronger study skills, organizational skills and time management skills. The National Institute of Labor Studies (2010), argues that one of the main reasons that more than 300,000 university students in Australia currently work 20 hours or more per week is that the financial aid available to college and university students does not adequately cover their needs.

The National Institute of Labor Studies (2010) study revealed that more than 57 % of Australian students receive little or no government financial aid. This means that these students must work a minimum of 15 hours per week in order to cover tuition, books and living expenses. This article also argues that working outside of student internship and practicum experiences can have a negative effect on the overall quality of a student's university experience. Finally, the demands that work places on a student's available time outside of class may conflict with time needed for studying.

Coleburn suggests that students should not work more than 20 hours per week. According to Coleburn, studies have shown that working between 10 and 20 hours per week has little effect on student's academic performance. In some cases, Coleburn suggests that working can help improve a student's grades because a job encourages students to develop better time management skills. Time management and organizational skills are critical in helping students to maintain strong grades. Coleburn's research demonstrates that despite the furor over student's holding part time jobs it is not necessarily harmful to a college or university student's grades to work at least part time.

Dundes and Marx suggest that students who work between 10 and 19 hours per week outside of classes and other college activities are more likely to have high academic performance than students who work more than 19 hours per week, or students that do not work at all. They hypothesized that the reason that students holding part time jobs had higher grades that unemployed students or students employed full time, was that they were forced to develop strong organizational time management and study skills in order balance the demands of work school and an active college social life.

A study of 256 students at revealed that students that worked between 10 and 19 hours per week had grades that were as good as, or better than the grades of students that did not work. The study also found that students who worked between 10 and 19 hours per week had stronger time management skills organizational skills and study skills which helped them to focus more on their studies. Finally, Dundes and Marx (2006-2007) suggest that the moderate stress experienced by working college students may have a positive influence on their academic performance since it encourages students to work harder.

Curtis (2007) has also studied the effects of work on the academic performance of college students. The primary focus of her study was how college students thought that working at least part time impacted their academic performance. She hypothesized that students who worked under 20 hours a week would not see a problem with their academic performance and might in fact; rate their academic performance as being higher as the result of working. A study of 336 college and university students in the United Kingdom indicated that students who worked at least part time felt that working had some advantages when it came to their grades. Students did however; indicate that balancing work and studying had a negative effect on their ability to participate fully in the social aspects of university life. They attended fewer parties and were less involved with on campus extracurricular activities than students who did not work.

Conclusion

It can be concluded that working less than 20 hours per week has few if any negative effects on student academic performance. In fact, the majority of researchers argue that working part time may force students to develop stronger time management, organizational and study skills in order to balance work and school and combat the extra stress that develops out of the need to balance work and school. Students who worked more than 20 hours per week were found to have lower grades while students who did not work at all did not experience in noticeable academic effects.

The research also indicates that students often do not receive enough financial aid to cover the cost of attending college and that in the current economy many students are receiving little help from family members. This has made it necessary for students to work in order to make ends meet financially. This is not a new condition for college students. As has been pointed out by several of the articles, historically students have had to work to support themselves as government stipends and scholarships are a fairly recent development in the world of advanced academia. Overall these studies have demonstrated that working is neither harmful nor damaging to the academic performance of college students under certain conditions such as, working limited hours and working at low stress jobs. Finally, research indicates that students who work under 20 hours per week at a moderate stress job may have higher academic performance than unemployed students or students who work full time.

References

Applegate Craig, and Daly Anne. (2006). The impact of paid work on academic performance of students: A case study from the University of Canberra . Australian Journal of Education, 50 (2) , 155-166.

Coleburn, R. Education: Clearing 2000: All work and no play: How much paid work can you afford to do while studying? The Guardian, p. 16.

Curtis, S. Students' perceptions of the effects of term-time paid employment. Education and Training , 360-390.

Dundes, Lauren and Marx, Jeff. Balancing work and academics: Why do students who work 10 to 19 hours per week excel? Journal of College Student Retention, 8(1) , 107-120.

National Institute of Labor Studies. University Students and Employment. Sydney, Australia : National Institute of Labor Studies.