All in a day’s work?
A recent survey conducted (as far as I can tell) in England has revealed that 77 per cent of university students have a paid job. More strikingly, 14 per cent have full-time jobs while studying.
Of course students working is not a new phenomenon; when I was a student many of us did some sort of paid work while at university. But in those days it tended to be during holidays, and not everyone felt any real pressure to earn money. Nowadays more students come from backgrounds where they cannot expect parents and families to provide funding, and costs (in particular accommodation costs) are much higher. Of course work can be an enriching experience for students (and course-related work placements are excellent), but when financial pressures are piled on and working hours invade study time it becomes a different matter.
This is another reason why public money needs to be targeted more specifically at those who most need it, so that earning money does not crowd out studies. Universities also need to be stronger advocates for students, so that society understands that financial pressures must not compromise the opportunity to learn.
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University Blog 
August 11, 2015 at 8:57 am
I think to pressure to work and thereby earn money has more to do with subventing a certain lifestyle than maintaining a basic level of subsistence; social life (primarily alcohol), which is much more extensive than 30 years ago, electronic devices, holidays and in many cases, a car, Little or nothing is spent on books or educational materials, It certainly does detrimentally impact on their education and often results in non-completion or repeated years. Even “fourth year drop-outs”, which I never saw until about ten years, ago are now quite common.
August 11, 2015 at 10:06 am
To be honest I’m not sure what you identify being the problem. Is it poor people not getting to Uni because of costs. Is it mal targeting the resource towards those that don’t need it. Or uni students destroying the labour market.