Does Employment Contribute to Higher College Dropout Rates among Students from Disadvantaged Backgrounds?

Kelly Raley, University of Texas at Austin
Janet Kuo, University of Texas at Austin

The goal of this research is to better understand factors that contribute to the positive association between parental education and other aspects of advantage rooted in family background and college success. We begin our analysis by describing variation by parental education in student employment status during the academic year and during the summer. We find that students with college-educated parents have the lowest levels of employment, and are especially unlikely to be employed for more than 20 hours during the school year. Following we explore whether college-student employment is associated college persistence in the first year. Extensive employment is positively associated with the likelihood of dropping out, but only during the academic year. During the summer, employment is positively associated with persistence. Results indicate, however, that employment does not mediate the association between parental education and college persistence in the first year