Beginning in March 2020 and ultimately continuing to September 2023, most student loan borrowers had their required payments on federal student loans paused. For student loan borrowers with limited access to credit, the payment pause provided additional cash-on-hand that may have allowed them to reduce their work hours. Using survey data capturing…

Non-exempt staff make up 28% of the higher education workforce. Examples of non-exempt staff in higher ed include electricians, police officers, photographers, custodians, office assistants, and food service workers. There is a dearth of reporting that characterizes the non-exempt higher ed workforce beyond those parameters that are used to…

Student affairs professionals are at risk of leaving both their jobs and higher education in general. A survey of higher ed professionals was conducted in May of 2022 examining student affairs professionals' likelihood of leaving their jobs, why they are considering leaving, and what factors may contribute to their retention. Results revealed that…

Student Affairs professionals report concerns of stress, burnout, work-life balance issues, overall job satisfaction, and unrealistic demands and expectations often resulting in employees exiting the field (Boehman, 2007; Evans, 1988; Lorden, 1998; Marshall et al., 2016; Mullen et al., 2018; Rosser & Javinar, 2003; Ward, 1995). The COVID-19…

Recent research has indicated that employee engagement is low among America's workforce. It has also indicated that higher education as an industry is no exception to this trend. The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between flexible work arrangements such as teleworking and flexible scheduling, work-life balance, and employee…

An increasing body of work has found higher education to be a challenging and stressful environment. Meanwhile, research on workaholism, characterised by an uncontrollable urge to work excessively, has been gaining momentum. However, few studies have explored its impact within higher education. This study addressed this gap by conducting 27…

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) enforces the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which is the law that sets federal minimum wage and overtime pay requirements. The FLSA specifies that for an employee to be considered exempt from overtime pay requirements as a "white-collar" worker, the employee must: (1) be paid on a salary basis; (2) be…

The determinants of income has been a key area of research in labor economics, and a large part of this has focused on the relationship between education and wages. This ignores the many other ways that income is influenced. I explore additional avenues by which income is determined. I examine how education affects income by influencing the hours…

Purpose: Apprenticeships in England, while defined by level and typical duration, are not quantified regarding the number of learning hours required to achieve the outcomes specified, as with other regulated qualifications and accredited programmes. This paper proposes an approach to ascribe credit to apprenticeships recognising both…

In 2022, the Boston Opportunity Agenda, the Birth to Eight Collaborative and the City of Boston's Office of Early Childhood partnered in the development of this survey of hundreds of early education professionals in the city of Boston, and then expanded its reach to total more than 600 respondents across the state. In it, educators and…

Recent literature on education and work well recognises the 'crowding-out perspective' of how higher education expansion impacts the labour market experience of young people with different educational levels. However, the relationship between the labour market experience and young people's self-reported happiness remains less well understood. This…

This research examines the impact of non-monetary work environment factors on employee discretionary effort within the higher education sector in Australia. There is limited qualitative research that examines the factors that drive and inhibit employee discretionary effort especially in the higher education sector. Semi-structured interviews were…

For years, rising tuition costs have dominated the conversation around college affordability. This report examines the average education costs for students attending both two-year and four-year colleges within the State University of New York (SUNY) and City University of New York (CUNY) systems. This report also compares costs to average grant…

This study examines the impact of managerialist policies on care relations in higher education. It is based on a study of 10 higher education institutions in Ireland. The paper shows that a care-free worker model is ingrained in systems of performance appraisal, especially for academics in universities, and increasingly in the Institutes of…

The teaching performance of higher education institutions is increasingly gauged by graduate employment outcomes. Measuring outcomes in full-time employment terms does not capture the complexities of underemployment, the rise of portfolio careers, the constraints of the labour market and graduate motivations for working arrangements that can allow…