Uni students who work while studying usually have better pass rates - report

An Education Ministry report shows more tertiary students than ever have been working while studying and most had better pass rates than those who didn't work at all.

The report Working while studying - have students' working patterns changed? said the number of students working during the main teaching months spiked in 2022 and eased but remained relatively high in 2024.

"Employment rose from around half of students in teaching months before 2021 to closer to 60 percent in recent years. The seasonal pattern - lower during teaching months and higher at the end of the year - has remained unchanged," it said.

It said between 57 and 60 percent of students worked during term-time in 2022, up from a range of 46-54 percent in prior years and dropping to 52-54 percent in 2024.

The report said most students who worked during the academic year were in low-intensity jobs, earning less than $1465 a month, and part-time students were more likely to be working than full-time students.

"Overall, while full-time students made up the majority of the student population, part-time students were consistently more engaged in paid work," the report said.

It also found some students were more likely to be in high-intensity work than others, earning more than $2628 a month.

"...differences in work intensity across groups are substantial, with some groups - particularly part-time students, those studying below degree-level, and Māori and Pacific Peoples students - more exposed to higher-intensity work," the report said.

The report said in 2024 students in low-intensity work had a course completion rate of 88 percent while those in moderate-intensity work had a slightly lower pass rate and those who did not work at all had the same pass rate as those in high-intensity work - about 83 percent.

Students in very high-intensity work had the worst course completion rate at 80 percent.

The report said part-time students who did not work had lower completion rates than those who worked, and men's completion rates dropped more if they worked a lot.

There were also differences between ethnicities.

"Overall, while completion rates are generally lower at higher levels of work intensity (although the strength of this pattern differs across groups), European and Asian students maintain comparatively high completion rates across all intensity levels, with limited sensitivity to higher-intensity work. In contrast, Māori and Pacific Peoples students have lower completion rates overall and show greater reductions in completion outcomes at higher levels of work intensity, particularly among Pacific Peoples students," the report said.

Students under financial pressure

Victoria University of Wellington Students Association president Aidan Donoghue said he expected high-levels of employment during term-time had continued into 2026 because many students were under a lot of financial pressure.

"For students a lot of cost pressures have also risen and perhaps your StudyLink living costs or allowance hasn't kept up with spikes in what you're paying so you definitely need to work," he said.

"All of our catered halls cost more per week than the StudyLink living costs so to live in them without external support you definitely have to work."

Donoghue said students often found retail and hospitality jobs because they were flexible and often involved evening or weekend work that did not clash with lectures.

"Personally I had to do overnights at McDonald's," he said.

Donoghue said the correlation between low levels of work and better pass rates might reflect greater determination on the part of students who needed to work in order to keep studying.

"There's definitely a trade-off between working more and having more money to play with or working less and spending that time on studying and it's always something that as a student you must come to terms with," he said.

He said the rise in part-time employment among students affected campus life, making it harder to attract students to events at times when they might be working.

Earlier this year, students' associations warned that many students did not have enough money to get by.