“I was tired of seeing it happen,” he said.
He began offering review sessions and found that attending them helped working students improve test scores. Students working more than 20 hours a week earned an average 69% on exams if they attended three review sessions versus students who didn’t and got an average 54%.
Emma Sealey looks at her fall semester schedule with Beth Ness, left to right, both juniors, during an open hour session hosted by Professor Keenan Hartert. Sealey is one of Hartert’s students that works at last 20 hours a week on top of her school workload. (Alex Kormann/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
Hartert, who worked up to 12 hours a week in the registrar’s office while attending Carleton College in Northfield, learned that about 38% of his students work more than 20 hours a week.
He said he thinks the data he’s collected at Mankato offers beneficial insight into students’ schedules because it’s a public, non-income restrictive institution. Most of his students are enrolled full time and are 19 to 21 years old. They work for various reasons, he said, including a desire to take out as few loans as possible. About 30% are financially independent and must pay for necessities, such as rent and food, along with tuition.
“I think a lot of them do have ... a very, very big desire to say, no matter what happens, I’m going to graduate debt-free,” Hartert said. “I love the gumption, but don’t do it to the point that you start failing class.”
He said his father worked his way through college with no family support and struggled. That experience, Hartert said, made him interested in studying working students. He’s also motivated by a desire to “not give up on the students that wouldn’t give up on themselves.”