Working while going to college— is it worth it?
Photo by Zach Staines
Attending college full time is a heavy workload in and of itself. Add employment to the equation, and students might be at risk of burnout.
According to research from Georgetown University, around 70 to 80 percent of college students also hold jobs—a number totaling nearly 14 million Americans. They make up almost ten percent of the nation's labor force.
Lee sophomore Abigail Bradley works at Bonlife and picks up shifts at Aubrey’s, totaling up to a 35 hour work week while taking 12 hours of classes. She also is training to work at Stack once it opens up downtown. Bradley has found juggling work and school to be a true challenge.
“It’s hard because I’m not involved in school as much. I’m in Epsilon, and I haven’t been able to devote really any time to that, which really stinks,” Bradley said. “You start to lose connection with things happening on campus. It’s honestly challenging to watch your social life go down the drain. Motivating myself to do school work is kind of hard because I’m exhausted all of the time.”
Indeed, according to a report from The Atlantic, the average college student needs to complete 48 hours of minimum-wage work a week to pay for school courses. This sort of rigorous expectation is rendered nearly impossible when coupled with overall rising tuition costs. Lee's tuition, for instance, has risen incrementally every year for the past three years.
Despite these difficulties, Bradley said she's glad she chose to work during school, rather than waiting to start college until she had the money saved to attend.
“I think it’s worth it, because you can move on into your life, and it doesn’t postpone things as much,” Bradley said. “I think if I had taken a couple years off before I started, it’d be way harder to finish because all of my friends would be starting families and their careers while I’d still be doing college. I definitely think it’s worth it.”
Callie Brainerd, a junior early education major with a minor in special ed, works a total of fifteen hours a week as an assistant teacher at the Early Learning Center. She also devotes fifteen to twenty hours a week to her job as an RA at New Hughes.
“The relational aspect of being an RA has been hard to make time for. I have been learning where I have a free hour and where I need to take space for myself. I’ve learned to invite my residents into my everyday life, so, for example, if I have to get dinner, they can come with me. I’ve just been doing little things with my residents when I do have spare moments,” said Brainerd.
Brainerd said she would feel a little less stressed if she could cut back a couple of hours of work.
“I’ve found myself feeling like I’m running from thing to thing very often. I think for my sanity it’d be better to be working for ten to twelve hours a week rather than fifteen hours at the Early Learning Center,” Brainerd said.
However, Brainerd maintains that her time at the ELC has been a fulfilling and great opportunity.
“There are a lot of direct applications at the ELC to my major in early childhood. It has given me much more confidence for my career choices,” she said.
According to information compiled by Student Loan Hero from the Wall Street Journal, the Federal Reserve and other agencies, the heavy burden of student loan debt after graduating is financially crippling a huge portion of the American population—seven out of ten graduates walk off the stage in debt.
$1.45 trillion: total U.S. student loan debt
44.2 million: Americans with student loan debt
Student loan delinquency rate: 11.2% (90+ days delinquent or in default)
Average monthly student loan payment (for borrower aged 20 to 30 years): $351
Median monthly student loan payment (for borrower aged 20 to 30 years): $203
But despite the staggering numbers, some students see working a job while trying to keep up with the pressures of academia as a choice that just isn't worth the extra energy.
Senior nursing major Chastity Sutterfield decided to quit her job. In the past, she worked third shift at assisted living and switched to working full time at a daycare while attending school. But working over forty hours a week while going to class utterly exhausted her.
“I never had a time where I felt like I could relax or have a break,” Sutterfield said. “I was either at school or at work. If I wasn’t in those two places then I was doing homework, and if I wasn’t doing homework then I was sleeping—and I didn’t sleep very often.”
She said one challenge was having to commute to and from work and school.
“I was commuting all over the place because I didn’t live on campus. I was commuting 30 to 40 minutes away from school and work all the time. It cost a lot of gas money and then I was eating out a lot because of that and paying for school out of pocket. I didn't end up having much spending money,” Sutterfield said.
For this semester, Sutterfield spent her summer working and saving funds in order to focus solely on school this year.
“I would prefer to always separate school and work, but I’m not sure that would be sustainable,” Sutterfield said. “Then again, not working while in school can be very stressful in that I have to manage money so tightly and consider budgeting and not having a constant influx of money weekly or bi-weekly.”
But Brainerd said she ultimately enjoys the much-needed influx of money while in school, as well as the balance work brings to her life and schedule.
“I think that it can be a challenge, but working has been overall beneficial for me,” Brainerd said. “If my grades were suffering then it’d be a different story. But working breaks up my day and gives me a lot of purpose and fills me up in different ways that I wouldn’t have if I were just doing school.”
