Students working harder to pay bills

Shaylee Wright doesn't often get to just hang out with her Brigham Young University peers. She gave up that luxury for a full-time job that yanks her from bed each morning at 4 a.m.

"I just have to do it. I just have to be really disciplined in what I do for fun and with my time," said Wright, a BYU junior who works the morning custodial shift on campus.

Even with her $8-an-hour gig, Wright still had to take out about $5,000 in loans to pay her tuition, housing and living expenses at BYU. Her six-day-a-week job leaves her just enough time to squeeze in a few classes and study time.

"It would be a lot easier without work. I could focus all my attention on classes," she said.

With annual tuition increases and higher loan interest rates, students at Utah colleges are working harder to pay their bills. At the U., 90 percent of students work at some point while they are in school and about 80 percent are working at any given time, according to annual surveys.

"As school becomes more expensive, of course it requires students to work more and probably to look at ways to modify graduate dates," said Barbara Snyder, vice president of student affairs at the U. "Simple economics tell us you can't keep going up 8 percent to 9 percent a year without profoundly impacting students' ability to pay."

That phenomenon has some school leaders concerned that hours earning a paycheck may be cutting into study time and forcing students to stretch out the time taken to earn their degrees — or even give up on them.

Especially now during a hot job market, Snyder sad she's worried students are putting school on the back burner to earn extra cash. The upswing in the economy has Snyder looking into enhanced retention efforts, particularly for sophomores and juniors who tend to put school on hold to earn some money.

While working part time often can help improve students' grades, it's the full-time work that can interfere with degree completion, she said. At the U., about 9 percent of students work full time with about 23 percent of students working 21 to 30 hours a week.

Salt Lake Community College traditionally attracts working students, with about 32 percent of students working full time and only 18 percent not working steadily.

"We know for a fact that many students who don't maintain academic momentum — they take fewer courses so they can work — tend to be the ones who don't persist to graduation," Snyder said.