“The skyrocketing cost of tuition has not only resulted in a student debt bubble that is approaching $1.5 trillion, but it is also causing American college students to spend more time working paid jobs then they do studying, in class, or at the library. A new HSBC survey revealed that 85% of current college students work paid jobs while they are enrolled. The survey found that they spend an average of 4.2 hours per day working paid jobs: 2 hours more than they spend in class per day, 1.4 hours more than they spend studying at home, and more than double the amount of time they spend in the library.” …
Link to HSBC survey included.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-09-20/debt-laden-college-students-spend-more-time-working-class-0
Compound the indebtedness of today’s students with the US’s fiscal deficit and ever rising healthcare costs and we have a recipe for this current generation’s anemic economic growth for very long. A large part of this is to be blamed on simple age demographics, but also effectively “pulling forward” wealth —borrowing from the future.
Current American higher education is quickly heading towards “bubble” territory given higher tuition expenses vs. poor employment outcomes. This will become all the more plain as artificial intelligence starts its deflationary impact on many knowledge industries. Hence the need for alternative/edtech to supplant institutions whose efficacy (relevance?) have worn thin.
The referenced HSBC report is at https://www.us.hsbc.com/ValueofEducation/ , if you do not want to have to go through the gloom/doom/conspiracy-theory web site to get there.
That report lists daily college student time in hours as:
2.3 in class, 2.8 studying at home, 1.5 library => total of 6.6 hours of academic time
4.2 paid work, 0.9 unpaid volunteering => total 5.1 hours of work and volunteering
2.5 social media, 2.3 texting / messaging / emailing, 2.2 watching streaming services => total 7.0 hours phone / computer (other than academic time or work)
2.0 socializing during the day, 2.0 socializing evening / night => 4.0 socializing
(Note that all of the above totals 22.7 hours, so there is probably some inaccurate overestimation in some of the responses, since it is unlikely that many college students or others can handle 1.3 hours or less of sleep per day.)
So the quote in post #0 saying that paid work is greater than any of the three parts of academic time is worded in a misleading way (but perhaps not a surprise given the web site it came from).