Will earning as you learn affect your grades? You bet it will. Students who work as little as 15 hours a week cut their odds of gaining a first- or upper-second-class degree by 62%, the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce) found earlier this year.

Many students are forced to work even more than that. Nadia Mendoza, 23, recently graduated from Glasgow University where she studied philosophy and worked up to 40 hours a week in a city bar for £5 an hour. “I gave up the job six months before my finals after friends told me I was working too much and looked permanently tired. But the fact is that I needed the money,” she says.

According to the latest Unite/Mori poll, two-thirds of students are in debt and one in 20 has fallen seriously behind with their bills. With tuition fees rising to £3,000 at most British universities this year, the pressure can only grow worse. NatWest’s Student Money Matters survey revealed that sixth-formers starting university this year expect to pay £33,512 in total for a three-year degree, up from £28,600 last year. As a result, they are likely to graduate with an average debt of £14,779. Nine out of 10 prospective students believe they will have to take on part-time jobs to cope with the expense — even though a third of current students admit that such work leads them to skip lectures.

Professor Claire Callender, author of the Hefce study, says: “What is striking is that the system disadvantages the already disadvantaged. They are more likely to work, and to work longer hours, and therefore do worse in their exams.” So what sort of job should you choose if you want to maximise your earning potential without putting your degree at risk?

The best place to start looking for work is at a Job Shop linked to your university. Set up by the National Association of Student Employment Services, these centres have information on jobs in your vicinity and can provide advice on sympathetic employers and work opportunities you can fit around your course. Pay rates for student- level jobs typically range from £4.25 an hour — the minimum wage for those aged 18 to 21 — to about £7.

The type of job available will vary, depending on your location. In Brighton, for example, many part-time opportunities are linked to the city’s tourism industry.

However, easily the most popular student jobs involve bar and shop work. A recent study by Sodexho, a leading catering company, found that most students with part-time jobs during the term worked 11-20 hours a week, with retail work being the most common choice. Shop and bar jobs are not necessarily the best options for those who want a good degree, however. Bar work in particular can be fun, but it often requires you to stay up late, which means you’ll be tired and unable to concentrate at lectures the next day.

A better option would be to utilise the skills you already have. For example, try to find work tutoring schoolchildren or giving English conversation classes for foreign students. Both choices will also look better on your CV than working behind a bar.

If you’re studying at Oxford or Cambridge, however, even tutoring work may not be possible. Both universities actively discourage students from taking part-time work during term time — which could be why the Royal Bank of Scotland found that the average Cambridge student spends £206 a week on living and accommodation costs but earns only £69 a week from term-time employment. There have even been reports of some students being asked to leave because they have refused to quit their term-time jobs.

The universities point out that terms at Oxbridge are short, giving undergraduates who want to earn money plenty of holidays in which to do so. Yet holiday work, like
term-time work, is becoming harder to find in Britain because of the influx of jobseekers from eastern European countries. Last year alone, 662,000 new National Insurance numbers were issued to foreign nationals. Hotel and pub chains have admitted that they often prefer eastern European workers because they will accept lower pay. J D Wetherspoon, for example, estimates that half of its London bar staff come from eastern Europe. So do about a third of those working for InterContinental Hotels, which owns the Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza chains.

Competition is not the only obstacle to solvency: the Parexel drug trial earlier this year, which left six men seriously ill, has also come as a blow: medical tests had long been considered a simple and convenient way for students to boost their bank balances.

There are still plenty of alternatives, however. Royal Bank of Scotland researchers found that students in Cardiff are the most effective at earning while studying. The average undergraduate at Cardiff University spends £188 on living and accommodation costs but earns £131 a week from part-time work, meaning that only £57 a week has to be found from other sources.

But there are drawbacks to earning that much: any income above £5,035 a year is subject to tax. The rate is 10% on the first £2,150 above £5,035, 22% on earnings between £7,186 and £33,300 and 40% on anything above that level. You must also pay National Insurance contributions for any week when your earnings exceed £97.

On the plus side, you can claim back any tax that you pay through an employer if your earnings do not exceed £5,035 a year — and there are special rules designed to allow those people who work only in the Easter, summer and Christmas holidays to receive their wages tax-free.

www.morethanwork.net lists more than 100 British universities with Job Shops on site

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