Making ends meet in a college world
Students balance work, school

by Lindsay Uerkvitz
Scroll Staff

Kiirstin Orr, a sophomore from Rexburg, works the check-out stand at Broulims Grocery, where she has worked for eight months. Fifty-nine percent of college students work at least 15 hours a week while in school. James Ricks / Scroll

An Alabama native with an easy smile and a strong handshake, Newburn has his life contained within his planner. The days are taken up with full-time classes at BYU-Idaho, and the nights and weekends are filled with 40 hours of work a week at Wal-Mart. The minutes of in-between time are stretched as much as possible.

Whipping out his planner while he races across campus, his eyes skim the to-do list and he said, “We’re on the move again.”

Last semester in one short hour, he went to the math lab, the economics lab, the grocery store and finally back to his house where he cooked dinner and caught up on the news.

Newburn wants to be able to do it all, and time does not always afford him that.

At the house, Newburn’s roommate Trent asks, “Oh hey, do you want to go shooting with us tomorrow around 4:30 p.m.?”

Newburn flips through his planner (once again) and winces.

“I would love to, but dude, I work tomorrow from noon ‘til nine. Maybe next time,” Newburn said.

Time is not something that he has a lot of. Almost every student is pressed for time, and a working student has half that and twice the load. Then there are some students who take on the near impossible — that of doing both school and work full time.

Their load seems almost impossible to bear. These students who take on the added responsibility of work have a heavy burden. The burdens can be as obvious as the dark circles under Newburn’s eyes.

Though Newburn handles it well, working so many hours can take over a person’s life and can starve him or her of some basic things in life that everybody needs — for one, sleep. Someday Newburn wishes to get about seven to eight hours of sleep a night.

“That’s one thing I sacrifice a lot for the priorities,” he said. “Sleeps always the first thing I forfeit.

“If I had more time, there are a lot of things I would do. I would study,” he said. “And my social life would be better. I would get some sleep, and my apartment would be cleaner.”

The same sentiments might be shared by about 59 percent of students. This is how many students function while in school. Most of these students work at least 15 hours, and about 17 percent work more than 30 hours per week.

Newburn works the hours that he does because he (and his bills) are used to a much higher salary than can be found in Rexburg. Back at home, he could earn $20 per hour, so he works almost twice the hours to earn as much as before.

Tuition hikes and the higher cost of living create a real need for students to work, so students take a job, and the fun begins, Dan Gulbransen, director of student financial aid at BYU-I, said.

When students work more than 15-20 hours per week, they become “unbalanced,” Gulbransen said. “These students are doing a juggling act, trying to fit in school, work, home, church, family and fun. Something’s got to give, or you’re not going to survive.”

Sometimes, what gives may be the very thing students are here for — school.

“I can’t do as well as I know I can simply because I don’t have the time. Skim reading just isn’t enough, but sometimes that’s all that I can do. Sometimes I have to figure out what’s more important — the paper or that quiz because I can’t do both,” Newburn said. “It’s all about deciding what you are going to sacrifice.”

“I think there is a teetering point at about 20 hours. If a student works more than that, we will usually see their grades start to fall,” Grant Johnson, the director of student employment placing at BYU-I, said.

Newburn knows he works too much but doesn’t see many ways around it. So he makes it work the best way he can – he prioritizes. Every minute of every day is carefully laid out in his planner to make sure that not a minute is wasted.

He’s afraid of the consequences if he ever lost that worn-out planner. He makes sure he has fun once in a while to add variety to his hectic days. He throws big breakfasts at his house on the weekends and invites the neighborhood.

When people see nearly a hundred college kids throwing Frisbees and eating pancakes on a Saturday morning, they can be pretty sure its Newburn making life fun, no matter what the effort or time involved is. Its simply how he copes, he said.

Newburn does date occasionally, “but [the date] can’t last long,” he said, “because I have a paper to write. But I need to go out because it would hurt me more if I weren’t as sociable. I really need that part of my life. It’s a good thing I make friends fast, otherwise I wouldn’t have any — I’m always on the go.”

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