Education Statistics. Are Students Really Studying So Hard in College?

There has been much discussion in recent years, however, about the actual value. A number of studies have shown that college students actually spend very little time on education-related in the course of a day – 3.5 hours, in fact as this chart from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows. 

The 3.5 hours of educational activities includes both in-class activities and the average study time for college students who are enrolled full-time (12 credit hours or more).
Latching onto these statistics, the Heritage Foundation recently compiled a report that spoke to the costs of college educations, the amount of taxpayer funded grants and loans, and questioned the return-on-investment that taxpayers are actually getting for the continually rising costs of college educations.

As a part of their report, the Heritage Foundation researched the costs of a college education for the 2015-2016 academic year. Costs at public universities for in-state students averaged $19,548 and 34031 for out-of-state residents. Average private college costs were $43,921. That’s a chunk of change for anyone to lay down for a year of study.
To offset these costs, of course, are federally-funded grants and backed loans which students take out every year to pay continually rising costs. According to the Foundation, moreover, because a full-time college student spends so little of his daily time in class and study activities, he does not graduate in the traditional four years, increasing the amount of debt that is accrued. While heritage does not present statistics to back up this last statement, it does state that taxpayers are now increasingly on the hook for loan defaults and loan forgiveness programs.

Taking additional information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Heritage report concluded that “Full-time College is typically a Part-Time Endeavor.” For its conclusion, it used stats gather during the 2013-2014 school year, as follows:

• College students work about 16.3 hours a week on average, to supplement their financial needs
• Full-time college students spend about 19.3 hours per week on actual educational activities (being in class and doing homework).
• Full-time college students who do not work are not spending more time on educational activities, but, rather, leisure time pursuits.

Average high school 17-year-old spends 31.2 hours per week on education and work. This time decreases to 26 hours for 19-year-olds and stays more or less the same till the graduation. At 29 years old total hours of work and education activities per week peak at 34.8. 
The following chart compares the educational activity vs. leisure/work activities of the two groups:

It is obvious that the high school student spends more time in class (24 hours per week) while the college student spends 8.3 hours. The reasons for this, of course, is that high school students are required to be in school for 5-6 hours every day. and their in-class time includes electives, PE, etc.
Further, there might be some argument with the BLS stats on this one, considering that a 3-hour credit course in college means 3 hours in class per week. A full-time student taking a 15-credit hour load would thus be in class 45 hours a week, not the 8.3 hours reported by the BLS. Clearly the BLS statistic has averaged full-time and part-time students together, which is not made clear in its chart. Thus, education statistics can be skewed just as any other statistics can be.

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