Balancing study with work: exploring the ‘payoff’ for students
Franziska Lessky, University of Oxford and University of Innsbruck; Mollie Dollinger, Curtin University; Nicole Crawford, Deakin University
International research shows that, globally, university students are increasingly undertaking paid work. In Australia, about three in four students work while studying, and the proportion of full-time students who also work full-time has risen since the pandemic to almost 15%.
This development often raises concerns that employment is negatively affecting students’ studies and might increase attrition. However, working while studying has not only become a central strategy for students to finance their studies in times of rising living costs and inadequate income support, many students also undertake paid work to strategically enhance their employability. Researchers argue that paid work experience leads to better remunerated occupations, which may contribute to partially reducing inequalities among graduates from different socioeconomic backgrounds.
While paid work has become the norm for most students, the outcomes from it are still far from equal. Students from equity-deserving backgrounds tend to work more often and a higher number of hours than their non-equity peers. Equity students also face nuanced disadvantages in their paid work, including unequal access to certain types of work experience (e.g., prestigious internships) and to the resources that enable the development of employability. This situation calls for a more critical and in-depth investigation into how ‘earning while learning’ impacts graduate outcomes and, if so, who benefits and under which circumstances?
Franziska Lessky’s 2025 Australian Centre for Student Equity and Success (ACSES) Visiting Fellowship explores the impact of equity students’ experiences in employment on their graduate labour market outcomes, both in Australia and Europe, in the project – Does combining work and study ‘pay off’? Critically investigating graduate outcomes of students from equity groups. Franziska aims to address a shortage of empirically-supported research through three distinct, yet interrelated studies. As a result, recommendations to guide appropriate, fit-for-purpose policies and programs that address deep-running structural inequities regarding student and graduate success will be developed.
What do we measure when we talk about graduate outcomes?
As part of the Fellowship, Franziska and Professor Mollie Dollinger (Curtin University) have examined graduate outcomes surveys in Australia (Graduates Outcome Survey), the UK (Higher Education Students Forecast), and Europe (EUROGRADUATE) to assess and compare their methodological underpinnings. This research showed that there is a tendency among all instruments to predominantly focus on economic metrics that mainly represent a view of higher education as an individual economic investment. However, the UK and the EU instruments also measure graduates’ job satisfaction and wellbeing. In the UK, graduates are asked whether they think that their work ‘fits with future plans’ and ‘is meaningful’. In the EU survey, graduates are asked about overall life satisfaction and wellbeing. Critically, investigating such metrics is crucial in order to track over time whether they can be improved to better reflect what is valued in higher education.
Going beyond narrow measures – What’s next?
One aspect to broaden our understanding and address the shortage of empirically-supported research on this topic is to reconceptualise and adapt survey instruments. A step towards this goal is being taken by ACSES in launching a new module in the QILT 2025 Student Experience Survey – The ACSES Education and Work Survey – with the help of our colleagues at the Social Research Centre (SRC). This module will gain insights into what proportion of students engage in paid work, what kind of jobs they have, how relevant the work is to their studies and how these factors influence academic outcomes.
A second element of Franziska’s ACSES Visiting Fellowship project will utilise additional indicators to measure graduate outcomes. Specifically, she will shed light on education-employment (mis)matches using country-comparative quantitative data in collaboration with Professor Ian Li (ACSES), Novia Minaee (ACSES) and Robert Jühlke (Institute for Advanced Studies Vienna).
Finally, qualitative insights are needed to illuminate the multifaceted role of employment within students’ lives. Drawing on interviews with students from Australia and Austria, Dr Nicole Crawford (Deakin University), Professor Mollie Dollinger (Curtin University) and Franziska will unpack the complexities of equity students’ experiences transitioning out of university into graduate employment.
It is clear that there is still much work to be done, but critically investigating whether juggling work and study impacts graduate outcomes and asking who benefits under which conditions need to be at the core of such investigations to inform evidence-based and effective policy responses.
Dr Franziska Lessky is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Oxford and Assistant Professor at the University of Innsbruck.
Professor Mollie Dollinger is Director, Assessment 2030 at Curtin University
Dr Nicole Crawford is Senior Research Fellow at Centre for Research in Assessment and Digital Learning (CRADLE) at Deakin University