The working status of students and time to degree at German universities

This paper analyzes time to first degree at German universities. The database is the "Absolventenpanel" 2001, a panel study conducted by the "Hochschul-Informations-System." The German university system is characterized by a long duration of study; the regular time is often exceeded. One potential reason might be the high proportion of students reporting part-time work during their studies. This paper focuses on the relationship between the working status of German students and their time to degree. Besides that, additional individual characteristics and parental background are included. Analysis is carried out for ten fields of study separately. The descriptive analysis reveals a positive correlation between the amount of part-time work and the duration of study. In the empirical analysis, the Cox proportional hazards model is applied. The results confirm that part-time work has an increasing effect on time to degree. These results and the aspect that mainly socially underprivileged students are engaged in part-time working during their studies should be considered in the political discussions of tertiary education financing and the Bologna process.