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news
College
students overworked, uneducated
By Adrienne Figueroa
On-line Forty-Niner
Balancing full-time
enrollment and part-time employment is negatively affecting
academic performance and the quality of education for many
college students, according to a study released last week
by the California Public Interest Research Group.
The analysis, which is based on data collected by the 1999-2000
Department of Education's National Postsecondary Student Aid
Survey, shows that nearly half of all full-time students in
the United States who hold a job are working enough hours
to jeopardize their academic achievement as well as their
involvement in community service and other extracurricular
activities.
At the same time, 63 percent of these students said that attending
college would not be possible if they did not work.
An increase in the amount and frequency of grants may be the
best way to alleviate this problem and give students more
time to tend to their studies, according to a recent press
release from CALPIRG, a non-profit public interest group that
addresses higher education issues.
"For too many students, working has become a barrier
rather than a help to advancing their education," said
Merriah Fairchild, CALPIRG's Higher Education Advocate. "Congress
should make college more affordable by increasing grant aid
so that students are not sacrificing a quality college experience."
At Cal State Long Beach the amount of students who seek part-time
employment has increased from just a few years ago, said Career
Development Center career counselor Carol Brown-Elston. Some
students must hold several part-time jobs at once to pay for
college and other day-to-day costs, although specific figures
on the amount of students in this situation are not available,
she said.
"We know students need help to defray the cost of tuition
and other expenses that they may have," Brown-Elston
said.
Through the center's job locator and development program,
students can be assisted in finding a variety of on-campus
and off-campus jobs, ranging from clerical work to positions
in the hospitality industry, Brown-Elston said. The majority
of these employers are willing to work around the schedules
of the students.
Staff at the center can help students locate a job, if needed,
but an increase in aid would make it easier for students to
concentrate on their studies and get out of college quicker,
Brown-Elston said.
Currently, there are no proposals in legislation to increase
the amount of grant aid, but rather to redirect funds to the
Cal Grant program from other grant programs.
In doing so, the number of grants guaranteed to qualified
high school seniors will rise from 48,000 last year to an
estimated 60,000 this year, according to an article in the
Los Angeles Times last week.
However, tens of thousands of older students, or students
who have been out of high school for 18 months or more, will
be denied grants they were eligible for last year, said Paul
Mitchell, chief consultant for the Assembly Higher Education.
This redirection of funds means that up to 60,000 student
applicants who qualified for the Cal Grant based on income
and grade point average will receive denial letters -- a 50
percent increase from 2001-2002 school year, Mitchell said.
The situation has become even more cumbersome as the amount
of requests by older students for grant aid continues to grow
and money in the state budget to accommodate them all is sparse,
Mitchell said.
"It's something the legislature needs to address,"
Mitchell said. "If it weren't for the state budget, we
would have been able to fix this problem now."
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