More and more students manage to fi nish a degree and work at the same time and Park has a large number of traditional and non-traditional students who not only have a job but also families to feed.
According to a recently released Bureau of Labor Statistics report, current cost of college tuition is 559 percent of what it was in 1985. This is nearly twice the rate of increase for medical care.
According to United States Census Bureau website, a study showed about 20 percent of undergrad students worked fulltime positions all year round, about 85 percent of graduate students worked at least part-time positions in a year; almost 50 percent of graduate students worked full-time; and about 72 percent of undergraduate students worked the entire year of 2011.
The article ‘More students working in college’ by Lynn O’Shaughnessy explained the different percentages of full-time students in different states.
The Northeast and the West had the lowest percentages of college students working full-time. Instead, the Mid-Atlantic and the East regions had the highest levels of undergraduate students working full-time.
Kathleen Venablek, a senior sociology major, explained her working and study load, as well as having an internship and being involved in two clubs at Park.
“It’s crazy,” she said. “I do plan weddings. I’m the vice president of social work club and president of the Spanish club so I do all the work for both clubs.
“I do some weddings. I don’t focus as much as I wanted to on my weddings because I have to focus on my education, I used to do three to four weddings in a month but now I just do one. And with the clubs I have meetings and organize everything, I combine both clubs to have activities and work as a team but it’s pretty crazy but I couldn’t say no to one of them and I love all of them.”