For some students, a job can be for extra cash, for rent, for tuition or food. Other students rely on their parents for financial support.
In a 2004 survey on ETSU campus, 1,010 students answered questions about their employment status. Of the students responding, 17.4 percent reported having full-time jobs. Of those, 19.3 percent report having a grade point average of 3.5 or higher. Three percent of them reported having a GPA of 1.99 or lower.
A much higher percentage of students reported not having a full-time job. Eighty-two percent reported not working full-time jobs. Of those students, 28.7 percent have a 3.5 GPA or better. About 2.5 percent of those students reported having 1.99 GPA or less.
For Hollie Hill, an ETSU junior studying management, her work at Office Max in Johnson City, is necessary to pay for school. “I have a scholarship, but that only pays for tuition,” Hill said. “I have to pay for fees, rent, my phone and books.”
Hill says working and going to school isn’t the easiest combination. “If there’s a lot to do that week, my school work sometime suffers,” she said. “I don’t get to do as much reading as I would like for classes.”
“Occasionally I have to take a step back and say, ‘OK, I’m here for school, not work,’ and that helps.”
Hill has attended school without a job before, and she says even though she didn’t work, she didn’t study either. “I didn’t work my first semester on campus, and I didn’t do my homework either,” she said. “I do as much homework when I have a job.”
For other students like Amy Jennings, an ETSU senior double majoring in mass communication, working is not an option. Jennings took out a loan for her living expenses for the semester. This is the first semester she has been without a job in 15 years.
“I have always worked since I was 18 years old,” Jennings said. “I am 33 now so it is a luxury not to have to work. I have worked my way through college and decided that since this is my last year I need to concentrate on school. I have found it much easier to do school work. It is on my time now. I don’t have to rush home after work and worry about if I can stay awake long enough to get my assignments done or not.”
Jennings said her decision to not work has helped her out in many ways, but the financial stress is still there.
“Having a job has the benefits of always having money in my pocket,” she says. “I have to be frugal now. I am on a very tight budget. I have to make a little bit of money go a long way. Benefits of not having a job would be that I don’t have to stress about when I am going to do homework or if I am going to do my work.”
A study done by Faculty & TA Development at The Ohio State University says, “With increasing frequency, faculty have found that student employment has had (an impact) on learning. Over the past several years, they have been noting that work is used more regularly as an excuse for absence or uncompleted assignments, that student schedules are so complex that out-of-class project groups or field trips are almost impossible to schedule, that students are more stressed than ever, and that students’ priorities and interests sometimes seem to be placed on their outside employment instead of their studies.”
The Ohio State study says several hypotheses for the increase in student employment can be considered.
“National surveys show that the cost of college compared to median family income has steadily increased over the years,” the report says. “Coupled with an increase in representation in the student population of students who are from lower class families, higher costs mean that many students are paying for a great portion of their educational expenses themselves. They juggle work and school throughout their program by necessity.”
The trend among college students in the United States is that more are turning to paying for college and the expenses of college on their own.
For Jennings, the decision to stop working in order to maintain a good GPA outweighed the option to work. For Hill, working is a part of college life.

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