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In an earlier blog entry, "Flunking out of College" (4/26/09) I tried to explain the lack of readiness responsibility that many last stage adolescents (ages 18 - 23) bring to college.
I believe this deficiency of psychological independence contributes to the 50% average of freshmen students who fail to graduate from many institutions. (See The Journal of College Retention.)
What I didn't add was that there is one activity in college that often boosts psychological independence and can make graduation more likely: holding a part time job while pursuing one's education.
When I mention this to parents who can afford to send their graduating high school senior off for an all expenses paid four or five year college experience - tuition, fees, board, room, and discretionary expenditures - they usually balk. Even parents who rely on student loan support can resist the idea. "Part time work will only place more demands upon him and will take time away from his studies," they argue.
But I disagree. The job demands will be supportive, and he will already be devoting time away from studies to pursue other non-academic (recreational) interests.
It is very hard for many last stage adolescents in the period I call "Trial Independence" (see 3/9/2009 entry) to grow up in college when they are treated by authorities as dependent in two ways. When totally defined by the student role, they are treated as a dependent person in preparation for adulthood. When totally financed by their parents, they are treated as a dependent person to be supported until adulthood. On both counts, growing up to more responsibility and independence can be discouraged and delayed.
What a part time job can offer is a more adult definition in the workplace, and some sense of financial independence from generating one's own income. This is why, when it comes to doing college, there can be a world of difference between the employed and the unemployed student.
The real world experience of necessary employment helps grow a last stage adolescent up in ways that the fully subsidized world of college study usually cannot. Simply put, my impression has been that students who work part time to help pay their way through college tend to be more invested in pursuing and completing that education.
Parents who decide to go the part-time job route in college with their son or daughter make clear in advance the basic expenses they are committed to underwrite, and those discretionary ones it will be the student's responsibility. Then parents and student try to estimate what those yearly expenses will amount to so the young person can get a sense of how much must be earned.
I've seen some young people bank their summer job money and Christmas break job money to reach their goal of being a student who doesn't need a job when going to college. In most cases though, working students simply get a part time job, maybe 15 or 20 hours a week, and earn their expenses as they go and grow.
As I've counseled working college students over the years (I live in a town with a big state university), and it's struck me all the ways the distraction of having a part-time job can concentrate a student on taking care of business at college. Here are just a few of the ways I have observed.
A part-time job:
--Affirms you have some knowledge, skill, or service to provide that the world of work deems worth paying you for.
-- Provides you with a grown up work role in addition to a growing up student role.
-- Creates adult, real world responsibilities for you to meet.
-- Strengthens your work ethic for doing what you don't always want to do.
-- Enables you to earn some independent income.
-- Give you some pride and self-satisfaction from financial self-support.
-- Requires discipline to meet a schedule. (Skip a class and you miss a lecture, but skip a shift and you lose a job.)
-- Gives you grown up experience working for a boss, getting along with co-workers, and serving the buying public.
-- Makes you more mindful of how you manage money now that you are working hard to earn it.
-- Shows how little you make at an entry-level job and so causes you to place more value of achieving a college education.
-- Builds your employment history when applying for future jobs.
-- Makes honoring a class schedule easier now that a work schedule is being kept.
-- Feels productive because you get some immediate material benefit from your efforts that just studying cannot provide.
-- Keeps you busy enough working and studying so it's harder to afford as much play and party time as your non-working student friends.
-- Gives you some financial stake in the education you are receiving.
-- Makes you more serious about finishing your college education so you can finally get a "real" job.
In general, it's very hard for many last stage adolescents to grow up enough in college to finish college unless they have some significant demands for independence while they are doing their studies too. This is where a part-time job can help. It's not a magic bullet, or a guarantee for graduation, but from what I've seen it often can provide some help.
Next week's entry: Teaching your adolescent independence.
For more information about my book on adolescence, "The Connected Father," see: www.carlpickhardt.com
Next week's entry: Teaching Your Adolescent Independence
