Giving Compass' Take:

• The author discusses a report from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce that shows low-income students who both have jobs and attend school often have poorer grades and their jobs interfere with their studies. 

• The report offers recommendations as to how schools can help low-income students learn about the tradeoffs of work and studying and how universities can provide jobs that align with students' career goals. How can businesses help colleges sustain partnerships to help with job employment and recruitment for low-income students? 

• Read more about the report's findings and possible reasons as to why these challenges come up in the first place. 

It’s no secret that most people can’t work their way through college anymore. And while many students still juggle a job, a new report highlights why that’s even tougher for those who are low-income.

“Low-income working learners are going to school more and working more hours, yet struggling to make it,” the report, which was released on Tuesday by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, states. “They have been failed by an education system that perpetuates intergenerational inequality.”

Compared with their higher-income peers, low-income working learners are more likely to work full time and take jobs that interfere with their studies.  The report suggests low-income students “are more vulnerable to experiencing declining grades when the average number of hours they work approaches or exceeds 40 hours per week.”

Low-income working students are more likely to come from underrepresented backgrounds in higher-ed, including black and Latino students, those who are first in their family to go to college, or students for whom English is not their first language. Women are also more likely than men to be low-income and working while in college.

Meanwhile, the report shows that 73 percent of higher-income working students are white.

Working full-time also leads to low-income students being less likely to attend college overall. According to the study, 83 percent of higher-income students enrolled in college in 2015 and compared to 69 percent of low-income students.

Georgetown’s Center on Education and the Workforce also included a set of recommendations for schools and policymakers hoping to improve the situation for students who are pitted between their education and work responsibilities. The paper urges colleges to better inform students about trade-offs around working while in school, and finding work that will support a student’s educational and career goals.

Read the full article about college students by Sydney Johnson at EdSurge