Earning to Learn: Working While Enrolled in Tennessee Colleges and Universities

Abstract

Although some students choose to work while enrolled in college, others may have no choice but to work, even if work may be detrimental to their chances of succeeding in college. Leveraging 17 years of statewide student-level records from Tennessee, the authors examine the relationship between working while enrolled and degree completion, time to degree, credit accumulation, and grade point average. The authors aim to increase understanding of how the timing and intensity of work relate to student outcomes and to explore how these relationships differ by college sector, industry of employment, and student characteristics. The authors find consistent negative associations between work and academic success, especially at higher levels of work intensity. Working students attempt and earn fewer credits and are 4 to 7 percentage points less likely to complete college. Among completers, working students take longer to graduate, even though they earn similar grade point averages and complete their attempted credits at similar rates to nonworking students.