Student Employees - Student Affairs Assessment
Student Employees
This report provides a population analysis of student employees on the Anchorage campus of UAA. Points of review include demographic characteristics, completion success rates and retention rates.
Demographic and employee information was pulled from institutional freeze data and matched to students. Unless otherwise specified, comparisons to non-employed students were limited to students who would be eligible for employment. Standard error of the mean was calculated where appropriate to consider significance of data.
Student Employment at UAA
To be eligible for student employment, UAA students must be registered in six or more UA credits and be scheduled to work no more than 20 hours a week as a UAA student employee. Continuing UAA student employees must demonstrate a record of successfully completing at least six UA credits in previous semesters, maintain a 2.0 cumulative grade point average, and work no more than 20 hours a week in a UAA student employee position.
Interacting with Graphs
Summary
- 831 students were employed on campus in FY16. While UAA enrollment has declined, the number of students employed has remained constant.
- Student employees are more successful at completing credits than comparable non-employed students, particularly at earlier stages of their degree progress. For example, first-time freshmen student employees achieved a higher average success ratio of 0.83 in FY16, compared to 0.73 among non-employees. However, a relatively small number of freshman are employed on campus.
- Student employees within the IPEDS cohort graduate at over twice the rate of non-employees; of the 2011 cohort, 55% of students employed at least one semester graduated within 6 years, compared to 19% of never employed students.
- Students within the IPEDS cohort who have worked on campus for at least one semester are also retained at higher rates: 78% freshman to sophomore retention among student employees compared to 66% for non-employees.
- 26% of international students and 21% of on-campus residential students were employed on campus during FY16.
Characteristics
While the number of students enrolled at the Anchorage campus has decreased, the number of student employees stayed steady. 831 students were employed on campus in FY16.
Gender
Student employees are slightly more balanced in gender than non-employees.
Residence
Though students living on campus make up less than 10% of the entire student body, they account for over 20% of the student employees.
International Students
Between 26% and 34% of international students are employed on campus.
Class Standing
Student employees consist of a higher percentage of seniors and juniors as compared to the entire student body. A relatively small number of freshman are employed.
Race/Ethnicity
The graph below details percentage of students employed in the race/ethnicity group. Caution should be used in describing trends over time as the number of students is quite small in some of the populations.
Success Rates
The success ratio used in the following graphs is calculated as the number of credits earned divided by the number attempted (including withdrawn classes).
Overall, student employees are more successful in completing credits attempted. Term GPAs were not included in this report but these were also higher for student employees than non-employees. This would be expected since failed classes would count negatively against both success ratio and GPA.
There is no apparent trend demonstrating whether student employment has a different effect on success rates for men or women. Further investigation is required.
When limiting the data to undergraduate students only and separating by class standing, student employment is correlated with a larger difference in success ratios for freshman than for seniors.
When comparing resident to commuter students the difference in employee and non-employee success ratios appear to be marginally greater within the housing student population. Some of the difference may be caused by a higher proportion of freshman living on campus who are not employees compared to the on-campus employees which are more evenly distributed. See the graph of class standings among housing/commuters and employee/non-employees above.
Retention Rates
For retention rates, the official IPEDS cohort was selected. Students within the cohort who worked at least one semester as a student within their first academic year were marked as student employees. These data may differ slightly from official IPEDS rates due to slight differences in data sources. For official rates, contact UAA Institutional Research.
The data shows a higher retention rates for student employees within the cohort than for non-employees.
Graduation Rates
For graduation rates, the official IPEDS cohort was selected. Students within the cohort who worked at least one semester as a student within the 6 year graduation period were marked as student employees. These data may differ slightly from official IPEDS rates. For official rates, please contact UAA Institutional Research.
The data shows a markedly higher graduation rate for student employees within the cohort than for non-employees.
October 26, 2016 Michael A Smith, Research Data Analyst, Office of Student Affairs