College students don't spend much time studying

Joanne Jacobs, Manhattan Institute. ^ | 5/2/2025 | Joanne Jacobs, Rick Hess and Greg Fournier

[george76]

College students don't work very hard these days, write Rick Hess and Greg Fournier of the Manhattan Institute. Full-time students say they average 20 to 25 hours of class time and studying each week, and some estimates are even lower. Thirty-five hours a week would be a reasonable amount of time, according to traditional measures.

They're not more likely to have paying jobs than earlier generations, research shows. In 2024, the average first-year student reported spending 5.3 hours per week in campus activities and clubs, 9.3 hours working for pay and 11.9 hours relaxing and socializing.

Yet most think they're working hard. "Sixty-four percent of four-year college students say that they put 'a lot' of effort into schoolwork, yet only 6 percent report spending more than 20 hours per week studying and doing homework," Hess and Fournier write. As a result of the low-expectations culture, "students are not getting the opportunity to master the work habits, knowledge, or skills that a college education is supposed to provide."

Professors complain that students complain about what used to be a normal reading load and normal writing assignments. Everything's too hard, they say. But used to inflated grades in high school in college, they expect to get A's.

One reason English teachers assign short excerpts rather than whole books is that students won't do the reading at home, writes Meredith Coffey, a former high school English teacher. Teachers are urged to have students read together in class, then discuss challenging material. But there isn't time for lengthy readings in class.

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TOPICS: Culture/Society; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: college; collegestudents; reading; students

[know.your.why]

I was in engineering classes with dark rings around my eyes from study-related sleep deprivation. AND I paid off my studrmt loans! Eff these entitled jerks.

[frank ballenger]

Seattle Times. Nov.6, 2015 (10 years ago).
Q: How much does it cost to hire someone else to take your online class for you, with the guarantee of a B or better?

A: $1,225.15, according to the author of a disturbing article in The Atlantic about the prevalence of services that offer to help you cheat, including one called “No Need to Study.” “That extra 15 cents,” Derek Newton wrote, “made it seem official.”

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NPR, 2019.
In the cat-and-mouse game of academic cheating, students these days know that if they plagiarize, they’re likely to get caught by computer programs that automatically compare essays against a massive database of other writings. So now, buying an original essay can seem like a good workaround.
“I have a friend who writes essays and sells them,” says Danielle Delafuente, another Boston University freshman. “And my other friend buys them. He’s just like, ‘I can’t handle it. I have five papers at once. I need her to do two of them, and I’ll do the other three.’ It’s a time management thing.”

[george76]

31% Of College Students Spend Their Loans On Spring Break..

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3533270/posts

[KarlInOhio]

Full-time students say they average 20 to 25 hours of class time and studying each week, and some estimates are even lower. Thirty-five hours a week would be a reasonable amount of time, according to traditional measures.

when I was in college I had heard the rule of thumb was one hour of class is matched with three hours of outside work for studying, projects and reports. Thus a 16 hour class load would require 64 hours of total time.

[Drew68]

I was in engineering classes with dark rings around my eyes from study-related sleep deprivation. AND I paid off my studrmt loans! Eff these entitled jerks.

LOL!

This article isn't talking about college students in engineering fields. It is talking about literally everyone else.

My roommate was a mechanical engineering student in college. All he did was grind. While the rest of us, and I mean all of us, were going to bars and keg parties, he was at home studying.

[Luke21]

Stop the presses.

[hanamizu]

Back in the ‘60s we guys had an excellent motivator to study hard—Selective Service.

[BipolarBob]

[Verginius Rufus]

I had a friend in college who partied so hard that he flunked out. He joined the Navy but did not like being posted to Adak, Alaska.

It has always been true of many students, at least in the US (maybe less so in countries where very few people go to college), but I think it has been getting worse lately.

[Angelino97]

I assume this only applies to those with easy majors. I don’t see how future engineers or physicians can get by on little study.

[Night Hides Not]

I graduated from Gonzaga 49 years ago (hard to believe). To earn my public accounting degree, I had to take 21 hours three of my last 4 semesters. That included a senior level philosophy course, which had weekly assignments that included a two page typewritten book report on books from Chesterson, Wittgenstein, etc. I was spending usually 3 hours outside of class for every hour in class.

Kept me out of trouble.

[hanamizu]

The idea that high school students read assigned texts aloud together in class blows my mind. We were expected to read whole books all by ourselves.

[MV=PY]

Perhaps they struggle to read?

[Myrddin]

I started UCSD in January 1974 at age 17. 18 units the first quarter. I had already spent the Summer of 73 in a microbiology course and Judo for fun. Fall 73 was filled with English, Math, Chemistry, Judo and some other classes. I finished UCSD in June 1976 at age 19. During some quarters I took 18 units where the Provost office could see it and another 4 units via the "extension" for 22 units. One one 10 week Summer session, I completed 8 units of organic chemistry lecture and 2 units of lab. Lecture was M-F 8 AM to 4 PM. Lab T-Th 6 PM to 10 PM. Easy A focused on a single subject. Getting to campus by 7:30 AM meant being in my car by 6:30 AM for the 30 mile drive in traffic. I would leave campus by 7:30 PM to arrive home some time after 8 PM. The rush hour traffic was over by then. There was little "social life" on campus, so no distractions of that kind occurred.

I arrived on campus early in the morning because I was a physics and chemistry TA and had "sections" to support. The physics classes were self-paced requiring 100% scores on each exam. I was there to administer the exams and tutor the students to help them learn the material. I earned 2 units for being a TA and the grade was dependent on my students performance. Another easy A :-)

[OpusatFR]

“I was in engineering classes with dark rings around my eyes from study-related sleep deprivation...”

Amen! I used to take caffeine pills to stay awake in order to do the reams of work each semester!

[riverrunner]

I never studied graduated with a 3.9.

Spent 33 years in my chosen field now happily retired

[Truth not Theories]

Slept 2 hours a night in college for a BS in Biology, Worked a part time job during the school year and two fulltime jobs in the summer to pay my way through school. Worked 90 hours a week after I graduated to pay off the last of my schooling. Joined the AF at 29 to serve my country. Doesn’t seem like many work that hard today to get a good education. What a shame.

[Uncle Miltie]

Easily 80 hours per week, Claremont McKenna College, class of ‘84.

[dfwgator]

I suspect ChatGPT will greatly cut down on the amount of effort it takes to study.