According to a report from EducationNews.org, community college students could graduate faster and with better grades if they spent less time working at their jobs and more time studying and taking classes.

The report, titled “Working Too Hard to Make the Grade,” was released this past summer by the public interest group CALPIRG, an organization in California that works to improve the health and education of people. CALPIRG is a non-profit public interest organization.

Community college students surveyed reported working an average of 23 hours per week to cover college costs, leaving them without enough time to focus on academics.

At the same time, many community college students had basic misunderstandings about financial aid, and the less they understood the less likely they were to have applied for aid. These factors likely contribute to low graduation rates – only 24 percent of community college students who intend to earn an associates’ degree or transfer to a four-year institution succeed in doing so within six years, according to the report.

“People think community colleges are cheap” said Chloe Kaliman, CALPIRG student at Santa Monica College, “but fees are only about 5 percent of the total cost of attendance, and so most students have no choice but to work long hours to get through school.”
However, less than one-quarter of students surveyed felt that they were able to balance work and study well.

When asked three basic questions about financial aid, only ten percent of survey respondents were able to answer all correctly.