Abstract
Even though there is an increasing number of degree-mobile students in Europe, not much is known about the effect of student employment on academic performance and study progress for international students. International students broadly engage in student employment during their studies. They differ in several characteristics from native students (e.g., by financial situation, language skills, and time spent on studying) and are a heterogeneous group (e.g., by country of origin, educational background, and intention to remain in the destination country). This study explores whether student employment and different dimensions of employment (e.g., study-related employment, employment amounts) affect the semester grade point average and the share of achieved credit points per semester. Using the first four semesters of a longitudinal study of international students in Germany and hybrid panel models (n = 1625), the study shows that students with a higher study-related employment tendency across semesters have, on average, better semester grades. When estimating the within-student effect, it is demonstrated that changes to student employment and different employment dimensions do not change the semester grades. In contrast, starting employment or increases in employment amounts (e.g., more hours per week) decreases the share of achieved credit points per semester. However, only specific student groups (e.g., students studying mathematics, natural sciences, and engineering) experience a delay in their study progress due to higher employment intensities.
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Data availability
The data will be made available by the author for replication purposes upon request.
Code availability
The scripts for the analyses are available at https://osf.io/8re49/
Notes
Except for the federal-state Baden Wuerttemberg, who charges a tuition fee for students from non-EEA countries (exemption clauses, e.g., for refugees, apply).
In the following, it is referred to paid work when writing about work or work amount.
ECTS points indicate the overall workload a student has completed during their study program. For every course a student passes, an assigned amount of ECTS points are collected. On average, 30 ECTS points are scheduled for each semester.
A third-country national originates from a non-EU, non-EEA, or non-European Trade Association (EFTA) country.
Some students cannot get their university entrance qualification recognized. To receive admission to a German university, they must attend preparatory courses (“Studienkolleg”) and pass an assessment test.
German universities focus on research and theoretical knowledge, universities of applied sciences focus on professional application.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Prof. Michael Windzio, Prof. Janna Teltemann, Dr. Susanne Falk, Dr. Johannes Wieschke, Silke Büchau, the IHF doctoral students and research assistants and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on earlier versions of this article.
Funding
The research leading to these results received funding from the Federal Ministry of Education (BMBF) under Grant Agreement No. 01PX16016B.
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Thies, T. International students in higher education: the effect of student employment on academic performance and study progress. High Educ 86, 933–951 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-022-00950-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-022-00950-5