Working 20 hours a week while in college is bad for your marks
October 7, 2010
Louise Brown
EDUCATION REPORTER
College and university students who work more than twenty hours a week are twice as likely to drop out as those who work less or not at all, according to a new study of more than 10,000 low-income Canadian students.
These weekly workers — who admit they spend fewer hours hitting the books — are more likely to live at home and get less financial help from their families than others, according to long-range research into the effectiveness of student aid funded by the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation.
“The question is, are these students working more because they’re already disengaged from learning – or are they disengaged because they have to work?” asked Professor Ross Finnie of the University of Ottawa, lead author of the Measuring Effectiveness of Student Aid (MESA) project.
It’s an important question, he noted, because if some students are being forced to work longer shifts because they get too little money from family or student loans, “we may have to fine-tune the student aid system.”
The study showed that of students who get no money from their parents, 30 per cent work, compared to just 15 per cent of students whose parents chip in $5,000 towards their schooling.
The study also showed students who study fewer than eight hours a week were more likely to drop out, although most first-year university students reported spending about 16 hours a week on school work, and college students about 12.5 hours a week.
So who borrows more money?
White Canadian-born students borrowed larger amounts from the government and private institutions than students who are immigrants or visible minorities, the study showed — underscoring the resistance among many immigrants to take on student debt, said Finnie, a professor at the University of Ottawa’s graduate school of public and international affairs.
“Visible minorities and immigrant groups often tend to be more self-reliant when it comes to financing higher education,” said Finnie, “even as they attend in higher numbers.”
Overall, the report showed students value government student loans — 42 per cent said that without them, they would have been forced to drop out.
“So we have to make sure that aid is there for students,” said Finnie, “and that it doesn’t get reduced.”
Among other trends that emerged;
• Females borrowed about $900 more a year in student loans than males. While more males borrowed from private institutions, when women did, they borrowed on average $2,460 more;
• Students from small towns borrowed about $7,000 more in government loans than students from cities, but urban students borrowed nearly $2,000 more from private institutions than their country cousins.
• Half of all students said they would have borrowed more in student aid if they had been allowed to, even though 48 per cent said they were worried about being able to pay back their debt.