Study Finds That African-American Students Who Work on Campus Do Better Academically Than Their Peers

A new study finds that African-American college students who work while enrolled tend to do better academically. The study is published in a new book, Understanding the Working College Student: New Research and Its Implications for Policy and Practice by Lamont A. Flowers of Clemson University.

Dr. Flowers found that black students who had full-time jobs off campus were more likely to earn As in their coursework than students who worked part-time or did not work at all. Students with campus jobs did better academically than those who worked off campus but off-campus workers were academically more successful than black students who did not work. Professor Flowers concludes that “working on campus provides African-American students with another opportunity, beyond the classroom, to engage their institutional environments in meaningful ways.”

Dr. Flowers is Distinguished Professor of Educational Leadership at the Eugene T. Moore School of Education and executive director of the Charles H. Houston Center for the Study of the Black Experience in Education at Clemson University. He is a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University and holds master’s and doctoral degrees in education from the University of Iowa.

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