University Students Engaged in Paid Employment
APA- 6th Edition
For various reasons, there has been an increase in employment in university students. One reason for this shift is a change in the demographics of university students. No longer are university students primarily composed of young adults who transition immediately from primary education to the university setting. Instead, many university students are non-traditional students. Many of them are older, have families, and have been actively involved in the workforce for significant periods of time prior to entering the university setting. Other students may enter universities at the traditional change, but face financial challenges requiring them to work to either support themselves or pay for the education, which reflects a cultural shift in both the willingness to subsidize education and the class requirements for higher education. For example, "reductions in financial support for higher education students have taken place in the UK since the 1980s" which has led to the abolishing of maintenance grants and substituting them with tuition and educational loans (Moreau & Leathwood, 2006). These types of changes are taking place worldwide, which is leading to a shift in the expectations for college students.
One thing that this shift has impacted is the number of students engaged in the workplace. Moreover, because of the greater number of students engaged in the workforce, one would expect to see changes in how this working environment impacts students. "Evidence from recent studies strongly suggest that there is likely to be an impact in each of these areas because the pattern of full-time students' engagement with higher education has changed over the past decade and especially in the last two or three years" (McMinnis & Hartley, 2002).
Generally, when one discusses how paid employment might impact a student's experience of the work environment, there are two hypothesized impacts. The first way that people believe paid employment will impact school is by impacting academic performance. The theory is that paid employment will interfere with students' ability to study and result in an overall decline in academic performance. However,...
Instead, the university experience is a holistic experience that involves a significant amount of social activity. Some studies have examined how paid employment impacts the overall university experience, to determine whether those students who engage in paid employment might be unable to enjoy the entire university experience.
One of the areas that researchers have examined is whether students perceive a conflict between work and study. Most students who are engaged in the paid workforce are not full-time workers, which helps explain the fact that most students do not report feeling a conflict between work and study (McMinnis & Hartley, 2002). However, while the majority of students do not report that conflict, a significant number of students do feel some conflict. In one study, almost one-third of working students reported considering deferring graduation in order to take a break and earn more money (McMinnis & Hartley, 2002). In addition, 15% of the working student reported considering changes their classes in order to accommodate a more strenuous work schedule (McMinnis & Hartley, 2002). This emphasis on earning money did appear to be detrimental to some students' studies; almost 20% of the students were worried about failing because of their paid employment (McMinnis & Hartley, 2002).
However, it is important to examine a variety of evidence about employment before drawing conclusions that involvement in the paid workforce is a negative for students. In fact, would be erroneous to conclude that paid employment has either a neutral or a negative effect on school performance. Missing classes has 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 paid employment is truly part-time employment and remains less than 22 hours per week (Applegate & Daly, 2006). Moreover, it can be very difficult to assess the number of hours devoted to work simply by examining hours worked (Stinebrickner & Stinebricker, 2003). It may be that students who are…
