Working Yields More Than Money
Part-time college jobs afford the opportunity to gain valuable career experience
The idea that you can work your way through college is outdated. The average tuition and room and board is now $34,698 at a four year private college or university for an academic year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In-state residents will pay $12,605 at a public school. But that hasn't stopped many students from trying to pay their own way through school or at least cut down on debt.
"I work so much so I can only take the subsidized loans," says Teresa Ross, a senior at the University of Colorado- Boulder majoring in astrophysics and planetary sciences. "If you can work, why pay the extra money for the unsubsidized loan?" Ross usually works about 30 hours per week at as many as five different jobs in one semester. Her tasks include staffing a mobile planetarium taken to elementary schools, performing data analysis in an atmospheric and space physics laboratory, baby-sitting, housesitting, grading papers, and doing other odd jobs that she can find on or near campus.
How does she do it? "A lot of the jobs that I have are really flexible with hours, and since I work for the school, they all know that when you have finals coming up you won't be able to work as much," Ross says. "It's best to try to get a job through the school because they know what you're going through and they're pretty lenient."
Too much. Like Ross, almost half of all full-time students work 25 or more hours per week, according to the State Public Interest Research Group's Higher Education Project, but 42 percent of these students reported that working hurt their grades. "Sometimes I'll get a B instead of an A just because I didn't have enough time to study," admits Amanda Burns, a senior marketing major at Azusa Pacific University who usually works 25 hours a week, plus commuting time, during the school year. Sharon Welsh, director of student employment at Rutgers State University and federal relations chair of the National Student Employment Association, cautions students against working too much. "Students who work on campus and work less than 20 hours per week do not have a negative impact on their gpa," Welsh says. "But students who are trying to work and save may be negatively impacted by working too much."
And for students receiving need based financial aid, working comes with yet another cost. As of July 1, 2007, the federal government won't deduct the first $3,000 of a student's earnings from need-based financial aid (up from $2,550 for the current academic year). But 50 cents of every dollar above $3,000 will be added to the amount a family is expected to contribute toward a child's education. So, if a student earns $6,000, the amount the family is expected to pay for college will increase by $1,500. However, students can exempt wages earned by work-study. These rules haven't stopped Nick Torres, a sophomore at the State University of New York-Morrisville, from averaging nearly 30 hours a week as a dealer at the nearby Turning Stone casino. "I can cut down on my hours big time and get a lot of financial aid, but I want to gain job experience at the same time I am getting a degree," Torres says. Ross, too, says she will continue to work long hours. "I work because I don't get financial aid, and I don't get financial aid because I work too much," she says. "I just find it easier to work as I go."
Most students work because they need the money, but the benefits of working while in college extend well beyond the bursar's office. "If they find a job in their field, they'll like it better," says Torres, who is working toward a degree in casino management-hence his job dealing at games like blackjack and three-card poker at the casino run by the Oneida Indian Nation. Says Welsh: "There is a common misconception that the only job available to students is very menial labor like working in the dining hall, but students are doing much more on campuses- research, community services, preprofession work, technology. Students are making terrific contributions, getting work experience, meeting people, and making connections."
This story appears in the September 18, 2006 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.